


The Wilder, Woolier 2018 Dianakko Week Compilation

by KriegsaffeNo9



Series: The Great Collapse [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Games), Little Witch Academia
Genre: Alluded-to times of eroticism which are not explicitly depicted, Author and pal cameo, Backup ships included, Blood, Day At The Beach, Diakko Week, Dianakko Week, Episode Parody, F/F, Feels, Fluff, Interactive Fiction, Movie Night, Not tagged because Diakko Week and all, Parody, Recreational Drug Use, The F word!, chainsaws, relationship troubles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-10 17:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15296436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KriegsaffeNo9/pseuds/KriegsaffeNo9
Summary: It's happening, and it's truth in advertising.  Here's to my favorite witches having a crazy week!Day 1 (Adventure): Diana and Akko take a mental health day by switching places with a pair of lookalikes from a small town in Texas.  A good time is had by all.Day 2 (Danger): Diana and Akko's haunted house has a few hiccups for its first showing.Day 3 (Laughter): A jaw-dropping interactive experience awaits you this Movie Night!Day 4 (Spoiling Akko): Diana makes a tiny mistake and makes up for it.Day 5 (Spoiling Diana): Akko makes up for overreacting to Diana's mistake.Day 6 (Anniversary): Remembering the day they met; remembering the future.Day 7 (Free Day--Double Date): Diana and Akko and Annabel and Lotte and Sucy* and Wangari* (*have to) hit up the club.





	1. The Girls of Summer

1 PM  
The Leyline Terminal  
A Tuesday

"Diana! Diana!" Akko said, posing with her doppelganger. "Can you tell us apart?"

Diana pretended to give it a moment. On the left was Akko, who had been at her side three seconds ago before running to give a leaping hug to Alejandra, and on the right was Alejandra, who was faintly tan, with rich black hair tied into a long ponytail. But truth be told they did look remarkably similar besides a few of the finer details.

"Oh, I can hardly tell," Diana said, smiling.

" _Eeee!_ It's so exciting!" Alejandra said, nuzzling her cheek against Akko's. "I've been a fan ever since you saved the planet and now I get to pretend to be you for a day!"

"Yeah, that about sums it up," Diana Cavendish said.

Not our Diana Cavendish, Alejandra's Diana Cavendish, who had an arm around Akko's Diana's shoulder. She wasn't quite a twin for our Diana, between her hair being much curlier and in tones of charcoal and chocolate, her being a little taller and with a well-fed paunch, among other things.

"Thank you for trading places with us," Diana said to the American Diana. "Our last vacation was a little more eventful than we hoped and someplace smaller and quieter sounds just right for us."

"No problem," American Diana said, giving her a thumbs up. "Oh, right... here's something for you. Ali told you I'm an amateur botanist, yeah?"

"She did," British Diana said.

"I'm also an amateur chef." She dug around in her backpack and handed Diana two brownies, individually wrapped in cellophane. "Try this when you wanna really, really enjoy Corpus Christi. I know you said, ah, 'small 'n intimate,' and Corpus is both, but it's also, uh..." She smiled. "'Nearly comatose' is how I'd put it. The beach on Padre Island is nice, and there's a new Alamo Drafthouse if you wanna catch a movie, but you're gonna be making a lot of your own fun. This should help."

British Diana analyzed the brownies. "Hm, these are a lot paler than most brownies I've seen."

"They're blondies, really," American Diana said. "Vanilla and brown sugar, chocolate and toffee chips, plus rose hips, valerian, and Golden Tabloid for mood alleviation. My own recipe."

"Golden Tabloid being?"

"Nothin' but CBD," American Diana said, and British Diana missed the sly wink she gave when she was distracted by Akko and Ali attempting some kind of ballet move and managing to just trip each other up.

"Okay," Akko said, "that was like sixty, seventy percent right. Next time, I'll lead, you follow!"

"Okey doke!" Ali said, giving her an okay sign. "You're a real showman, Akko, it's great."

"Well, I always wanted to be a great witch like Chariot!" Akko said, hand in hand with Ali.

"Oh, hey, I always wanted to be a great singer like Selena!" Alejandra said.

"Who?"

"...Whattaya mean 'who?!'" Ali shouted, her voice echoing like a shot. She pinned Akko beneath her, retrieving a pair of brass knuckles from her long, floral-print skirt and strapping them on. "You tell me you were kidding or I'm gonna--"

"Shhh," American Diana said, stroking Ali's hair. "Shhh. She didn't mean anything by it, she's from Japan, she might just not know. She can look up Selena while she's in Texas. That'll be cool, right? Sharing culture, learning stuff..."

Ali sniffled. "Y-yeah... yeah. I'm sorry, Akko. I just get so angry sometimes and I don't know why and I should've warned you!" She gave Akko a massive hug, even by Akko standards.

"It's cool!" Akko said, just a little dizzy. "Just be careful around Sucy, she likes to play pranks but she don't mean nothin' by it. Right? Okay? Plus she always has some acid on her."

"Acid, you say," American Diana said.

"Yeah, she likes aqua regia. That means 'king water.'"

"...oh. Okay. Duly noted."

Akko hopped to her feet. "Alright, Diana, let's get moving! Time's a-wastin'!"

"Right!" Diana said, checking her and Akko's luggage. Two days' worth of clothes, swimwear, towels, magic routers so they wouldn't suddenly run out of mana at inopportune times, chapstick, sunblock, the Happy Bag with its happy unmentionable contents...

"C'moooooon, we gotta rock 'n roll!" Akko said, straddling her broom.

"Right!" Diana said. "We're all set, let's ride."

"Ride the chariot!" She winked at where Chariot should probably be.

"To... to beach vacation hell?"

"That's the catchphrase!" Akko said. "Oh, do they have a Donut Wolf in Corpus?"

"We do!" Alejandra said, with a hop. "A Five Guys too! And a Wienerschnitzel!"

"That's not just a band?! Let's roll, Diana!" Akko and Diana tia'd into the air and through the gate.

"Bye, guys!" Alejandra said, waving too late.

American Diana had a thought.

"Wait," she said. "Wait... they were gonna transform us, right?"

"Hm?" Alejandra said.

"Like, use magic to make us look like them. Since we already look like them, kinda, it was gonna be easier on all of us than if we were two total randos...?"

"Oh, right!" Ali said. "I totally forgot. Right, so they could sneak in some mental health days without worrying anybody!" She smiled. "Ah, well, I'll just have to sing so beautifuly nobody will ask why Akko is Tejana~"

"Or why Diana's black now," American Diana said, adjusting her glasses and being black.

* * *

7 AM  
Corpus Christi International Airport  
Still Tuesday, Just Earlier

Diana burst from the leyline terminal, making a hairpin turn and sweeping to a stop, her feet touching the ground punctuating her flight. A few seconds later, Akko rocketed out of the terminal and smashed into a padded crash wall. She peeled herself off (and somewhere far away Lotte shouted "Phrasing!" to the consternation of the other witches taking a test in Functional Astrology) and rubbed down her legs, trying to work some feeling back in.

"Well, that got really, really, really, really boring," Akko said, popping off her headphones, "but now we're here! In beautiful, scenic..." She threw herself into a presentation pose and read the name of the nearest sign. "FedEx Ground!"

The Corpus terminal was growing from the scrubby grass between the parking lot of a featureless tan and gray FedEx building and the street. There were a few other featureless brick-like buildings and a mysterious orb on a tower in eyeshot. Everything else was patchy, low-cut grass and the endless horizon. Oh, and the sky, which was searingly blue in the early dawn hours.

Diana consulted her phone. "How does breakfast sound?"

"Amazi--wait. I just had lunch but why does breakfast suddenly sound absolutely perfect?"

Diana gave her a hug. "Because you're my hungry little bunny, Akko." She kissed her.

Akko's smile went from wide to screwy and she melted into Diana's arms.

"And now," Diana said, not quite audibly, "I must type one-handed." She peered over Akko's shoulder as she searched Google on her phone.

* * *

Akko clapped twice, then three more times, faster. "Break-fast ta-cos!" she said to the dawning sun as it crested over the food truck they found in a parking lot outside a Wal-Mart. Clap, clap, clapclapclap! "Break-fast ta-cos!"

"Hm. Perhaps we should've waited a little longer before we arrived," Diana said, checking the itinerary. "Check-in isn't until 3 pm. We'll have to haul our goods around until then..."

"Ah, whatever, our brooms need a job anyway. I'd like to see anyone steal our stuff when it's fifteen feet off the ground! Magic!"

"...Why, yes," Diana said, smiling. "I'd almost forgot... ten." Her smile fell. "Oh, damn, our doppelgangers!"

"Our doppelwha--oh, yeah. Eh, they'll be fine too," Akko said, giving Diana a hug until she could feel Diana's heartbeat slow back to normal. "Now excuse me, I'm gon' get another potato-egg-and-bacon taco."

"I think I will too," Diana said.

* * *

Prof. Badcock squinted. "Ms. Kagari, you've dyed your hair?"

"Just for today, Profesora Badcock!" Ali said, shaking her head such that her lustrious hair caught the sunlight, glinting. "The day simply moved me and I had to obey the stirring of my heart~"

"As you ever do," Badcock said, and returned to her lesson after a quick nip from her openly-displayed bottle of Buckfast tonic wine.

* * *

Akko stepped out of the changing room in her fancy new red bikini. "Hell yeah," she said, stretching 'til all her backbone joints popped. "He-e-e-ll yeah! I feel like a goddess!" The changing room was elevated a story off the white sands; she stood on the edge of the steps and challenged the miles of white-sand beach ahead of her. "Gonna swim the ever-lovin' hell outta you, beach. How 'bout you, Di..."

Diana strode out. Her one-piece bikini was carbon-black and sleek, green and gold running lines gliding down its front and--Akko noticed as Diana fluffed her hair walking to the showers to the right of the changing room--had criss-crossing straps along the back exposing diamonds of pale skin. She stood beneath the shower and twisted the large handle, water cascading down her voluminous, curly hair and her toned body. She shuddered at the chill, turning in place, soaking head to toe 'til her hair hung about her face in limp damp curls and her swimsuit glistened in the morning sun.

"Come on," Diana said. "You don't want to shock yourself with cold water when you're out on the beach. ... Akko?"

"hbuh" Akko said.

"Very well," Diana said, stepping over and picking Akko up, walking her to the showers.

* * *

Eventually Akko snapped out of it enough that they could set up shop on the beach. By the time Akko reanimated she was too excited to bother actually putting together the tent--not that either of them had delusions of doing it by hand--and magicked it up and ready, setting their brooms hovering inside to carry it as they needed. Diana planted a cooler full of drinks (mostly bottled water, at her insistence) at the back of the tent. "And I do believe that's everything."

Akko checked the list--an actual list written on paper. "Tent, broom, drinks, sunscreen, meow!, snacks, swimmin' shoes 'cause of all the shells that'll cut up our tender lil' baby feet, wands, mana routers, check and check plus!" She shredded the list, balled it up, and threw it at the tiny trash bag she'd hung up in the corner, nailing the shot. "Can we get wet now, Di?"

* * *

3:33 PM  
Crimson Coven dormitory  
Yep, still Tuesday

"Phrasing!" Lotte said, dropping her bookbag on the ground.

"Phrasing what?" Sucy said, looking up from her back issue of High Times. "Are you eavesdropping again? ... With an eavesdropping spell, because it's just you, me, and Spicy Latina Akko?"

"Hey!" Ali said, looking away from the clothes closet. "That's a very offensive phrase even if I aspire to live up to it!"

"Eat me, Texas Tea. Anyway, why don't you try those meds, you drunken asocial metalhead Finn?"

"The ones Horowitz gave me?" Lotte said. She dug around in her trunk and pulled out a tiny bottle. "M-maybe I should. If it's really getting to be a..." She read the label at last. "Sucy, is lysergic acid die... dieth-a-la..."

"It's a headache medicine with some mild anti-anxiety properties," Sucy said. "Take a drop or two and see how you feel."

"Alright," Lotte said, pulling open the bottle and splashing two drops of medicine on her tongue with the little dropper built into the cap.

"Gimmie a hit too, I have a headache," Sucy said, gesturing.

"Pardon," Ali said, "I'm just being spacey ol' Akko like always, but do I have any casual clothes or maybe some dresses I can wear?"

"You're hella at metamorfieing," Sucy said, squiring an entire dropper's worth of medicine into her mouth. "Magic yourself up an outfit like you always do."

"Oh, of course," Ali said, "I mean, that was always on the table, I just felt like--"

"Where's Akko?" Lotte said. "And who are you?"

"Well," Ali said, smiling nervously, "it's a funny story..."

* * *

9:36 AM  
South Padre Island Beach  
Tuesday-riffic

A majestic pink dolphin--

* * *

"--PHRASING!" Lotte blurted.

"Wow, you really _do_ have a problem," Ali said. "Oh, uhm! Sorry if that was offensive! Please, let me hug you."

"Okay...?" Lotte said, and Ali did, good and firm. Lotte blushed. "Thank you. That really does make me feel better."

"Come," Ali said. "Let me sing you a song."

"Ooh boy," Sucy said, flopping her magazine over her face.

* * *

\--anyway, a majestic pink dolphin burst from the level blue sea, chittering with delight. Diana, riding on its back, let out a mighty whoop of delight as she and Akko (it was a metamorphied Akko, spoiler alert) plummeted back into the sea in an eruption of water. Diana burst into nervous laughter. "Again, again!"

"Maybe in a sec!" Akko said, "'Cause that is like murder on my tummy. But I can do this!" She rocketed ahead in the water, half-submerged, her wriggly tube body--straddled between her legs, it felt like one gigantic muscle--propelling them at incredible speeds. Sure, not broom-fast, but brooms weren't built for this. Splashes of ocean water and foam burst across Diana's body, seemingly preferring to hit her goggles, getting a reprieve only when Akko burst out of the Gulf of Mexico to wave to the other early-rising beach-dwellers.

Not that they knew it but Lotte was hugging Ali back and struggling to not just chant her catchphrase over and over again.

"Alright, I'm diving deep!" Akko said. "Holdja breath, Diana!"

Diana loudly inhaled and pat Akko's dorsal fin.

"Dive, dive, dive!" Akko said, and plummeted into the sea.

Behind her, Diana saw the shelf of the shore give way to open sea; ahead, she saw the Gulf of Mexico in all its splendor, the sea incomprehensibly massive, fading into a blue haze not far out. As Akko plowed through the sea, shapes took form in the haze and became clear as they approached. Dolphins--real ones, out in the sea. Diana's heart pounded.

Akko clicked at the trio of dolphins. They clicked back. Diana waved at one; it wriggled over, looking at her with one of its beady little beetle eyes. Hesitantly, she held her hand out; the dolphin rubbed its muzzle (was that the right term? she'd have to look it up when she was on land) against her. It was warm and slippery and firm.

One of them clicked at Akko again; Akko shook her head and clicked a response. The first dolphin produced a switchblade. Akko spat a magic spell at it, knocking it out of the sea and, not that either of them saw, hundreds of feet into the air, tumbling through the sky at a mile a minute. The other dolphins, especially the one Diana was petting, looked at each other and swam back into the gloom in a hurry.

Akko went ahead and surfaced.

"What was that about?" Diana said.

Akko thought about it a moment. "They asked if you were my girlfriend, I said yes. After you pet that one, the leader guy wanted to take you on a date, but I said we're not into the poly thing, and, well, things evolved from there." Akko tried to shrug and just flapped her flappers. "Dude was a jerk."

Diana patted Akko's back. "I think I'd like to collect some shells for a minute... on the shore, away from the dolphins."

"Good call!" Akko swam for shore.

"He didn't say 'date,' did they..."

"Not in so many wo--FISH!" Akko dove for a small fish and swallowed it whole. Diana, simultaneously, gulped down what felt like a gallon of seawater.

* * *

4:11 PM  
Constanze's Shop  
If it isn't a Tuesday you're not in Luna Nova

"There you go," American Diana said, patting the light. "This'll keep your tranchos comfy and your herbs growing at a steady pace."

"Thank you very much," Jasminka said, curtsying. "Constanze is very good with machines, but I always felt--well--self-conscious when I asked her to help grow my babies and my gardens. She's very..."

"German?"

"Yes." She sighed, caressing the thorax of Crisped Up Her Abdomen, the biggest and angriest of her Goliath bird-eaters.

"A lady's gotta have her secret garden," American Diana said, winking.

"Diana, I think I owe you some pie. You like pie, don't you?"

"I do," American Diana said, nodding.

"Better call your girlfriend," Jasminka said, fiddling with one of her braids. "If she's not around I may get carried away."

"With pies...?"

Jasminka shuddered. _"Like you wouldn't believe."_

* * *

12:11 AM  
South Padre Island Beach  
[Tues-day, Afternoon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEMuAnFH_lM)

"Lunch is served," Diana said, gesturing grandly at their plates on the folding table inside the tent: broiled lobster tail with steamed rice and stir-fried vegetables.

"Oh my God," Akko said, starry-eyed. "It smells so good."

Akko finished in just under a minute; Diana took a while longer, so Akko cracked open a fancy blood-orange soda and reclined on her towel.

"Man, that was so good," Akko said.

"If I may be so bold," Diana said, "I think this is quite delicious myself."

"Did you fish for that lobster while I was busy chasing that kite?"

"No, I took a quick jaunt to that market. I don't think there's a lot of lobster to go for in this part of the world."

"Ah, dang. Well, you didn't miss anything when I was chasing that kite, turns out it wasn't actually a bomb, it just had a picture of a bomb on it. Kid was pretty glad to have it back though!"

"Hm..." Diana said. "I think I'm beached out. Where should we go after this?"

"We-e-e-ll..."

* * *

2:25 PM  
Alamo Drafthouse, Corpus Christi  
Yep, Still Tuesday

Diana screamed and clamped onto Akko, burying her face in her shoulder. Akko kept a stiff upper lip even as her heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her throat.

Somehow, the two made it, slouching out of the theater in a terrified haze.

"Jesus," Akko said, "Hotel Transylvania 3 is intense."

"I didn't know a cartoon character could have that much blood to spill," Diana said.

"I didn't think a PG movie could have that many..."  Her stomach lurched as she thought about the rest of her sentence and let it die.  "I think I'm gonna need somethin' to steady my nerves," Akko said. She guided Diana to the bar. "Hello! Cocktails please!"

"Sure thing," the bartender said, "let's just see that ID."

Akko dug around for her wallet and flashed her ID; so did Diana.

"Mm-mm, you're only 18, so you'll have to order one of the virgin cocktails."

"But we're 18. We ca--wait. Is that not how it is in America?"

"Oh! It isn't!" Diana said. "In the United States you have to be 21 to drink!"

"But I'm scared _now!"_ Akko said, glomming onto Diana.

"I can recommend a place for ya, if you're so inclined," the bartender said.

* * *

2:44 PM  
Island Joe's Coffee  
Second Day of the Work Week, Third of the Week Proper

Akko flashed two peace signs, Diana a serene smile, and the two weirdos in the coffee shop just smiled like idiots as the lady behind the counter took a picture.

"Keep safe out there," the tall, gangly weirdo said.

"Not too safe, though!" the slightly-shorter-than-normal, fat, balding weirdo said. "You wanna keep that autobiography exciting. Don't wanna peak in chapter 2."

"Sure thing!" Akko said, barely listening to either of them. "Now come on, let's finish these smoothies and I can keep coloring this coloring book." She gestured at the Emoji Movie coloring book. The page she was on breathed haggardly, blood-streaked phlegm leaking from its pages.

"I think it's a good idea not to mess with that book," the tall nerd said.

"No," the balding nerd said, "mess with that mess. Mess with it all day long 'til something horrilbe happens."

"I think," Diana said, after a long draw from her smoothie, "the tall one has their heart in the right place."

"Fi-i-ine," Akko said, crossing her arms.

The Emoji Movie coloring book crawled towards her; Diana and Akko blasted it to ash with a pair of blast spells. The fat nerd threw a rock at where it was before it disintegrated.

* * *

10 PM  
Luna Nova lawn  
Almost Wednesday (Not Quite)

Alejandra hopped onto the makeshift stage. "Good evening, Luna Nova!" she said into the microphone, waving at the six or so students loitering after curfew. Lotte was among them, staring off into space, laughing at things only she was seeing. Sucy was not present, having already gone through her trip and retired to her bedroom to read High Times as was her desire this day.

American Diana clapped. "Knock 'em dead, hon!"

"I shall!" Alejandra said, throwing back her luxurious hair. "Gentlefolk--cue the music."

Jasminka hit play on a tiny remote, and a karaoke machine came to life, playing "Is It The Beat" as made famous by Selena. Alejandra hopped into the song immediately, to the disinterested mild appreciation of everyone present.

"Eheheh..." Lotte said. "The stars... th' stars are so _mad_ at us..."

* * *

8:15 PM  
An Unidentified Beachside Condominium  
You Know When, Bitch

Akko sighed as she settled into the hot tub. The hot tub was in a big plastic dome overlooking the beach, accessed through a door in the bathroom; their condo was as luxe as their budget allowed, and their budget certainly allowed "Ooh, that feels so good... jeez, I'm aching. Guess I didn't realize how busy we got today, huh?"

"We got up to business, that's for sure," Diana said, cuddling up to her. "There was the book store, the dying Toys 'R' Us where you got that broken dart gun and five of the same Lego action figure, the museum, that monster we fought at Doc's..."

"Yeah, who'da thunk a giant monster would'a menaced the best bar-and-grill in town and then we had to swoop in and save 'em and then we got a free meal and they looked the other way when it came to us bein' 21!"

"Who would have indeed," Diana said. "That's a very good summary of the last few hours." She took a sip from her giant twisty drinking-jug filled with frozen pina coladas. "Ahh... my nerves are calm at last."

"Didn't American Diana say those blondies are good for nerves?" Akko said. "That was... it's yesterday for them now, right?"

"It's tomorrow for them now. We're still yesterday relative to them."

"Man," Akko said. "Time is weird. Maybe we should pop those brownies before we go to bed, see if it helps us relax enough for sleep!"

"We already ate them, remember?" Diana said. "After dinner, that was at 7."

"Oh, yeah," Akko said. "I forgot! Busy day."

"The good kind of busy~" Diana sank into the hot tub up to her jaw. "I don't think sleep will be a problem at all. Put on a little music, hit that bed, and let Hypnos drag me down to his..." She blinked. "Akko... did you feel that?"

"Feel wha--" Akko said, and she felt it. The whole world lurching out of balance, as if the planet had gotten drunker than Akko did (not very, she just had that chocolate mudslide drink and enjoyed the everloving hell out of it). "Ooooh. That."

Diana giggled. "You... you know... I should be..." She wobbled to her feet and failed at wobbling to her feet and landed in Akko's arms, splashing maybe a gallon of water outside of the tub. "Whoop! Sorry, Akko."

Akko giggled. "S-sorry? No need, man... baby... lady... princess..." She kissed Diana. "You're like... the person I... I'd... wanna... have... fall?"

Diana burst into a laughing fit, and Akko followed, and it was a good few minutes before they managed to flounder free of the hot tub and towards the bed, high as a kite on Golden Tabloid marijuana.

Nothing untoward happened. At least not until after they watched an on-demand movie, giggling their happy witch asses off the whole way through Annihilation.

* * *

11 AM  
Port Aransas Airport  
Wednesday, At Last

Akko shoved another pentacle donut into her mouth. "Di."

"Myes, Akko," Diana said, a big, loopy smile plastered onto her face, along with several shades of icing.

"I think. That brownie. Made us hiiiiiigh. For like. A day."

"I think... it do." She reached into the Donut Wolf bag and pulled out one with sprinkles. She ate it in two implausible bites. "I don't... I don't usually eat... like... Donut Wolf? Like this much? It's not in the UK... I don't think?"

"But... there should be," Akko said. "For... like... balance... in the universe. Like In 'n Out. And Five Guys. And Whaaa-ta-baaaa-gaaaaa." She tittered, lapsing into Japanese as she praised three varieties of fries.

"In... one... day." Diana blinked heavily. "How. That's... a billion calories. We'll... we'll be... infinitely fat."

"I seen that porn!" Akko said. "Din' wanna, but Sucy made me!"

The two shared a hearty laugh, for had they not both seen porn Sucy shewn them that they didn't want to be shewn?

"We..." Diana said, "are in no... fit... state... to fly."

"Magic!" Akko said. "Magic that sheeeeeit!"

"Right!" Diana said. "Shit, you're always so right. Akko, I love you more than anyone else in the entire universe put together."

"Diana, if there was a universe and, like, I had to choose between you and the universe, I would choose... you... my 'niverse."

Diana doubled over in a guffaw. "Don't! Don't say! You! People might! You! ... You!"

After a few clumsy attempts, the two of them, their luggage, and their four bags of Donut Wolf donuts made their way into the leyline terminal on brooms enchanted to fly them straight back home. After a timeless expanse spent resting against each other and laughing, they emerged through the terminal gate and to a Luna Nova bathed in late afternoon sun. Akko made a sweet three-point landing on the grass; Diana flopped off her broom and faceplanted onto slightly better-mown grass. "Haha. Grass," Diana said, pushing herself onto her back and looking up at Hannah and Barbara. "Oh, it's ... you... people."

Hanbarb helped her to her feet as Sucy, Lotte, and the two doppelgangers gathered around Akko. "How was tricks?" Sucy said.

"Tricks. Was. Peeeeerfect," Akko said.

"Your eyes are red and your sweat smells like weed," Sucy said, giving her a lick. "Tastes like it, too. Golden Tabloid?" Akko batted at her like a grumpy kitten.

"Yes indeed!" American Diana said.

"Good pick. Strong anti-anxiety tendencies. For Diana, that's a must. Not like that no-pedigree LSD we got fed last night, Lotte."

"This is real life, right?" Lotte said, still shaking like a chihuahua.

"We had a wonderful time," Alejandra said, "and I didn't get mad or anything, so it was perfect!"

"So... was... your... place," Diana said, pulling Alejandra and American Diana into a huge hug. "I loved it. I loved it~"

"Well, I'm glad you loved it, at least," Hannah said.

"It was absolute torture without you here!" Barbara said.

"But," Diana said, pointing at her doppelganger. "Her."

"Diana, you class this filthy place up," Barbara said.

"Yeah, Diana!" Hannah said. "Nothing can take your place, especially not a filthy wo--"

Presently Diana and Akko and Alejandra and Sucy (American Diana and Lotte having no stomach for it, but plenty of stomach for Donut Wolf, of which they enjoyed their share) capped off a perfect day with a perfect vicious retributive pummeling. (Sucy would later state that her racially insensitive jabs came from a place of love and sarcasm; Akko reminded her that she was on thin flippin' ice, and the battle continued in its steely silence.)

All was right with the world.


	2. Scream Until You Like It

"Three, two... go!' Joanna said, giving a thumbs up.

"Hello, Luna Nova!" Wangari said, smiling so broadly she could've bisected her head. "Welcome to the Luna Nova summer festival, and welcome in particular to the Spooky Club House of Horrors!" She thumbed behind her at a small building Constanze and an army of Stanbots--with nominal help from the rest of her social circle, not for lack of trying--had built the night before. The wooden walls were painted with fake brick, spattered with fake blood and fake-bloody handprints and useful graffiti like "DON'T COME" and "WELCOME TO DIE." "Built by Luna Nova's biggest horror fangirls, this humble house of, uh, spookiness may very well be the most frightening... hang on, let's take this from the top, I really should've proofread this first."

Kimberly groaned. "I did, like, six times, and you didn't look at my notes even once."

"Hey, hey, no lip there, Kim-Kims! Right, from the top."

After a few more tries, Wangari finally broke through the block. "Alright! Now, let's take the tour!" She sidled to the door, a rusty metal(-painted wooden) number. "No line just yet. We're goin' in." She pushed in and the door creaked painfully open to a near-black antechamber lit by a single flickering bulb. Wangari slipped inside, Joanna and Kimberly right behind her.

Just outside, Diana and Akko peeked in on them. "Is Hannah and Barbara's room ready? ... Is it a room, even? Whatever it is it better be ready or Wangari's gonna scathe the everloving _crap_ out of us in the next paper."

"I believe in them," Diana lied.  "Worst comes to worst, we'll say... we'll say it's... downloadable content?"

"Yes!  DLC!  We got a lie, we got the power, we got the tools, we got the talent. Team Infinite Nightmare Horror Engage!"

The two shared a fistbump and sped back inside.

* * *

Wangari squeezed through a hallway so tight it was a little difficult to breathe... for Jojo and Kim-Kims. Wan-Wan was slender enough it was just a little awkward. The walls were slick, icy-cold, and black, ragged gauze hanging from the ceiling at irregular intervals and adding a softly scratchy sensation to the clamor. "Right here you see one of your great classic people funnels, making you slow down and activate any claustrophobia disads you may have taken..."

"Please speak English or at least a language that exists, boss," Kimberly said once she hit a patch that was a little less tight.

"That's super English, you just haven't been paying attention. Ah ha, and an exit! We're stepping out into..." Wangari pushed through a door that closed at an odd angle. "Oh, it's a quaint little, uh, German clockwork hospital?"

The walls were hardwood; old rusty examination tables formed a maze for the ladies to traverse. There was a fireplace at the far end, enclosed in glass; a lady was there, looking away from them. She was on the short side, with a long jacket concealing most of her form save for her short blonde hair.

"Lookie here," Wan-Wan said. "Miss, do you have any words for us poor sinners?"

"Why, yes..." the woman, who let's just be frank was Lotte affecting a scary voice, said. "I welcome you here to my laboratory. The laboratory of the _Lesbian Puppetmaster_!" Lotte spun around, flinging her coat open to reveal her doctor smock and knit sweater and giant golden clock necklace. She cackled as animated maquettes of the titular puppets from Puppetmaster crawled from hidden slots around the room and towards Wangari and her crewe.

"Lord a'mighty!" Wan said. "Are the puppets queer or just their creator? Or are all of them flying their pride flags while participating in the time-honored act of murder?!"

"I'm still deciding!" Lotte said. "There's a lot of interesting subtext in just declaring the puppets to be lesbians!"

"Come, ladies, we should avoid bein' murdered!" Wangari vaulted over the intervening tables in a few seconds. "Alright, we made it to the... ...guys?"

Kimberly was on her phone, waiting for the puppets to get her. Joanna was stuck between an exam table and an old ottoman. "Help?" she said.

Wangari sighed. "Dammit, you two."

* * *

The green room for the last two encounter chambers (as Cons had described them on the blueprints) was the smallest, perhaps inadvisably given it was where Akko practiced her chainsaw moves. "Right-left high, left-right X, right-left low, left-right X... should I go slower? Like, go all Pyramid Head, slow swings like this weighs a billion tons?"

"Mix it up a little," Diana said, imitating gestures. "Big wings that take a lot of oomf, little ones that are fast, disorienting. Give them a fear of both."

"Ooh, I like!"

Diana dabbed more black paint over her eyelids. "Should I paint eyes on my eyelids instead of just blacking out the lids? I think that could have a spooky effect."

"Give it a try," Akko said. "If Wan says it don't work, paint over it for the next group."

"What a wise cup..." Diana said, dropping a reference to some videos they'd watched together a few weeks ago.

A Cons Alarm lit above the door.

"They're in the Sucy Labyrinth already?" Diana said.

"Really galloping, those guys!" Akko said, pulling on her mask. "See you at the end!"

"See you," Diana said, waving her off. She picked up a walkie-talkie on her dresser and activated it. "Red, Blue, are you alright?"

After a few moments the red one picked up. Or at least she was pretty sure that was the red one's voice. "Almost," the red one said. "This is really heavy."

"I mean," the blue one said, "we're using our wands but it's so hard to push even using magic it's like we gotta put our back into it! Like, Mother Mormo, it's pointlessly hard to do!"

"That's unusual. Is the thing you're pushing magic?"

"Yeah!" red one said. "I mean, yes, it's very magical. I think."

"We used a lot of magic to make it," blue one said.

"It's weighty... with mana."

"Good luck," Diana said, and deactivated the walkie. Were they bolting an entire new room on? They couldn't just be shoving an entire new attraction outside. It could be spoiled by anyone walking around the haunted house before going in. She dipped her brush in glow-in-the-dark makeup and began to paint an eye on her eyelid. She just had to have faith.

* * *

A cardboard standee of two small Sucy-looking girls popped up in front of the exit. The sound of a terrified capybara played from nearby.

"Cho!" Wangari said, kicking it back down. "Gotta say, the Chamber of Sucy was surprisingly lacking in menacing and less-surprisingly full of inappropriate cleavage!"

"face" Jojo said, pawing at the left half of her face, which had turned to stone when splashed by one of Sucy's potions. "face can't feel face"

"It'll get better," Wangari said.

"Ffffug this," Kimberly said. She'd been transformed into a reasonably gigantic fly (about chihuahua-sized), retaining her head for comedy purposes. "Let'zz just ged dis over with."

"eye eye eye can't blink"

"By and large," Wangari said into the mic, "this has been a hell of an exhibit! But this last room is gonna really make or break the attraction. Have a strong ending and a man can forgive a great deal, but peter off at the last minute and an entire experience can sour. What is it about what TV Tropes calls 'ending aversion?' Is closure so important to us that--oh hey it's the last room."

The last room was much more open than any other. The path through was a rickety wooden bridge elevated just above the painted faux-swamp floor strewn with moss; an impressive fake willow tree loomed over the center of the room, and hidden speakers played both swamp sound effects and [a soft, nerve-stroking music track](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPr6Oq2x4PQ) that sounded vaguely familiar to Wan's ears.

"Ladies and gents," Wangari said at a whisper, "we seem to be closing out on a trudge through eerie swampland. Who's gonna try to kill us? Is that too much to hope for? Surely we can't be--" Kimberly flew into the back of her head at a good pace. "Alright, at my stenographer's insistence we're picking up the pace. Onward and outward, children."

"breathe can't breathe" Joanna said, keeping her camera trained on Wangari to the full extent her remaining hand could.

After a minute or so of trudging across the rickety, serpentine bridge, something descended from the tree with the grace and weightlessness of a spider on a thread. It seemed to be a woman, unsurprisingly, with meters-long white hair and a long white dress. She sat in mid-air, back to the three girls. The music intensified.

"I think we have our spook," Wangari said. She held out her mic. "Excuse me, ominous hovering specter, may we have a word for the school paper, blog, and podcast?"

The spectral figure giggled.

"That's more of a sound effect, m'am, could you--"

"O Eustace," the figure said, "we have guests. Kindly show them the door... to heaven~" She threw her head back in a delirious cackle, revealing a gaunt, corpselike face and cat-eye makeup over her closed eyes, not that it was easy to tell in the lighting but that was totally the case.

"Eustace?!" Wangari said. "That's a hick name if I e'er--"

A mighty arm burst free from the pseudo-swamp in a spray of authentic-looking swamp water. Clenched in its hand was a running chainsaw. With a little wiggle and a mild amount of effort a huge figure burst free completely from the swampfloor, dressed in a baggy boiler suit with faux-leather apron and a spraypainted rubber Spock mask. Eustace gave their chainsaw a mighty, lurching swing as they advanced on Wangari and her plus-two, following up the swing with a series of rabbity thrusts and slices.

"And away we go," Wangari said, grabbing Joanna's stony wrist and dragging her away from the sawrunner. Joanna bumbled just behind them, not overly concerned with avoiding death. Eustace was restriced to the swamp sections but still came rather unnecessarily close to slicing any of them in twain, and had an uncanny ability to flop into the painted swamp and reemerge elsewhere. They ran beneath the still-laughing specter and felt her scary ghost hair drape across their heads (save for Kimberly who just flew close to the ground to avoid her entirely).

"A strong finish!" Wangari said as she slung Joanna over her shoulder (clenching the camera in her teeth so they could get some decent shots of the exit), "And now, we depart! Four out of five do please visit!" The exit was the only well-lit portion of the entire ride, nested at the very back of the swamp room like the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel (as Wangari had described it).

Eustace, who was three steps away from them, took a moment to pump their fist in victory, letting their prey escape at the last moment. Once it was clear they weren't gonna double back through the exit for a last couple of shots, Eustace powered down their chainsaw and yanked off their mask, revealing themselves to be...

...brace yourself...

... _none other than Atsuko Kagari._

"Phew, that freakin' mask needs, like, breathing holes or something," Akko said, wiping her brow.

Diana, the true identity of the terrifying specter with the cat eyes thing, floated over, swimming through the air. "Likewise, this wig is terribly itchy. And yet, I can't help but feel like my own hair is insufficiently frightening. The sacrifices we make in the name of art are manifold and profound. ... Though at least we can poke a few more circulation holes in your mask. Though, if my ghost-hair were patchy and stringy... hmm..."

"Let's try that out sometime! Not this time because wow that wig cost some money, but sometime!" She pulled in Diana for an upside-down Tobey McGuire kiss. "And let's do more air kissing. Air kissing is fun."

Diana kissed her chin. "I can think of a few other things we can do in the--"

Just outside the door Wangari screamed in a way that did not suggest good-natured spooky fun-times.

"We should probably look into that," Diana said.

"Yes, m'am," Akko said, shouldering her chainsaw and rushing the exit. Diana swam through the air after her.

* * *

Hannah and Barbara's contribution to the haunted house was the garage-build version of a pile of Fuel Spirit microbots. Instead of a uniform black with red glow, the mass was assorted shades of steel and aluminum, guttering white and blue from unevenly-spaced running lights. Also, it struggled to take any shape at all, though at present it was managing to slouch along on three wobbly legs emerging from its refrigerator-sized bulk and fling Wangari around in the air with a forest of grasping, fumbling cyber-tentacles. Wangari was not having a good time of it.

"Oh, son of a..." Diana said, biting her lip to seal in the curse word.

Wangari clung tight to a tentacle that caught her. "Oh, hey, you two!" she said, kicking at a second tentacle closing in on her. "Don't suppose this is part of, uh, the... the kayfabe? Is it like one of those hostage experience things people pay a lot of money for?! 'Cause that'd, uh, that'd make me a lot less--" A tentacle grabbed her other leg. "This is developing in a way I don't like!"

"We got you!" Akko said, donning her mask and revving her chainsaw.

Diana slipped her wand from its hidden catch in her costume. " _Kalkuli_!" A silvery bolt of mana struck the Fuel Spirit beast. White crystals grew throughout its bulk, freezing its body in place where they grew. Wangari twisted her leg free of a calcified tentacle, shattered fuel spirit and calcium crystals raining on the lawn. She flung herself off the tendril she was holding on to and landed on Hannah and Barbara, who were trying to... it was unclear, actually, since they were listlessly circling their creation.

"You're clear!" Diana said.

" _Rip 'n tear!_ " Akko said, leaping into the air and bringing the chainsaw down on the monster's core. Chunks of fuel spirit and gallons of blood flew into the air as Akko sawed straight through it, her saw thumping off the grass. She punted the two halves onto the ground, whereupon they exploded. " _Slice_ to _defeat_ you," Akko said, planting her saw in the ground and flexing.

Diana floated over Wangari, helping her to her feet. "Apologies for that," she said. "I'm afraid we should've vetted their contribution more thoroughly."

"It's fine!" Wangari said, laughing a little too loudly. "It's totally fine! I'm excited! I'm intact! And those two make a great landing pad!"

"Yo, where the hell did you find that?" Akko said, her hand resting suggestively on the chainsaw's grip.

"Barbara found some blueprints tucked in the library's copy of the Pnakotic Manuscripts," Hannah said, pointing both pointer fingers at Barb. "So if anyone deserves to be punished it's her."

"But Hannah threw a bunch of pigs into the alembic when we were making it so it's her fault it likes the taste of pigs and people!" Barbara said, pointing with both middle fingers.

In seconds the two were engaged in a brutal pansy slapfight.

"It's cool," Akko said, waving them off. "All's well that ends well! And in the end, there's nothing me and Di can't handle with love and a chains--"

"Wait," Diana said, looking at Akko's weapon.

"Phrasing!" Lotte shouted to the empty Lesbian Puppetmaster room.

"Did--" Diana sputtered. "Were you waving a live chainsaw at the school reporters?!"

"Chainsaws aren't alive in the literal sense, so techn--oh, like did it have teeth and stuff? Yeah!" Akko ran her finger along the blade and promptly cut herself. "Ow! Frick! Man, you're right, that's super dangerous."

"You..." Wangari said, and went pale and sweaty. "I think I'm gonna... I'm gonna grab some drinks from the drink tent. Jojo, Kim-Kims, some help, please."

Joanna was gently poking her eye to see if it was done being stone. Kimberly's legs had gone back to normal, but just her legs jutting out of a giant fly body with her regular human head on top of it. "Help your own damn self," Kimberly said, "I'm taking a nap."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lesbian Puppetmaster AU spin-off. Y/N?


	3. I Can't Decide

_This fanfic is an interactive experience. Your choices will shape the narrative._

* * *

Akko stumbled into the Last Wednesday Society. "Guys!" she said, "Or really just the one guy! I need something for movie night! Do you have magic movies for sale or rent?"

The proprietor rubbed his chin. "Hrrm. I think I might just. One sec..." He vanished behind the doors to the back room and emerged a few minutes later with a rectangular box in his hands, a piece of hard, hinged plastic with two clear windows displaying spools of magnetic tape. "This here is pure magic. I'll gladly rent it to you over the weekend for two pounds." He leaned forward across the counter. "If you think you can take it, that is. It gets intense."

Akko contemplated his offer.

 **CHOOSE AKKO'S RESPONSE**  
A) "I dare because I care! Hand that sucker over!"  
B) "I'm really out of ideas for tonight so I guess I'll take it."

"Alright, as you wish." The man who looked rather like famed salesman Chumley handed over a VHS tape, at once heavy and hollow in Akko's hand. She had never once seen a movie on tape in her life.

Wait.

_Press the B key on your keyboard within three seconds of reading this sentence._  
_If you did, continue reading._  
_If you did not, or were too late, please reread the fanfic from the beginning._

"Oh, hey," Akko said, "do you have, like, a tape player?"

"For VHS?" the proprietor said. "Yes, as a matter of fact. Good thing you thought to ask."

"Good thing I did," Akko said, winking heavily at the audience.

* * *

Diana was shocked out of her reverie by a goblin popping out of a locker.

_Press B on your keyboard within three seconds of reading this sentence._  
_If you did, continue reading._  
_If you did not, please return to the line break and read again._

"Mother _Mormo_!" she said, refraining from kicking the goblin reflexively. "Please, a little more warning next time."

"Ah, right, sure, whatever," the goblin said. He was bright green and wearing a popcorn box for a hat--specifically a fake popcorn box with a mound of plastic popcorn on its top, the box part of a flat novelty cap the goblin wore. "Listen, lady, I'm selling snacks. You look like a lady who could stand a snack or two. Whattaya say? Whattaya buyin'? Ain't gonna be long, kid."

 **CHOOSE DIANA'S RESPONSE**  
A) "Well, it's Akko, so I guess we'll be having a pile of chocolate, my good man."  
B) "Popcorn, maybe? I see the hat, it's all I can think about. Just popcorn, please."

"Sure," the goblin said, handing over Diana's order. "I'll charge your student account. Adios, sucker." The goblin hopped back into the locker.

Diana sighed and headed back to her dorm room.

* * *

Akko finished setting up the VHS deck with only a few tutorials and spells to make all the connections go where they were supposed to. Diana lay out her accumulated snacks and took a seat on the fainting couch. "I'm ready when you are!" Diana said.

"Me too~" Akko said, flopping onto the couch next to Di. "Let's see what amazing thing I wound up renting from the magic shop!"

"Yes," Diana said, cuddling up to Akko. "And we can eat the food that I acquired from the goblin."

"Hell yeah," Akko said. She picked up her remote, took aim, and pressed play. The tape deck hummed and groaned, and with a soft whine there unspooled on Diana's television a vision--a series of images synchronized with sound--and that vision, that sound, that visual medium, was nothing other than...

* * *

 

_Take note of your choices._  
_For every A, add 1 point._  
_For every B, add 0 points._  
_Now, witness the ending your actions have earned._

* * *

 

**0 POINTS: LAW ENDING**

...handheld camcorder footage taken by someone trudging through a public park.

"Oh... oh, jeez!" Akko said, holding tight to Diana. "What if this is one of those creepypastas and Skinny Jim's gonna show us a bunch of dead babies or something?!"

"If it is," Diana said, reaching for her lightly-buttered, lightly-salted popcorn, "we'll be cursed together. And we'll beat him up together."

The video blurred as the camera pushed through a hedge.

Akko rest her head in the crook of Diana's neck. Diana pressed her lips to Akko's forehead, glimpsing upward.

The camera broke through and bore witness to a gathering of strange individuals. Two of them were Akko and Diana. Akko was clad in a faux-leather jerkin and boots, holding a dollar store toy bow close to her chest. Diana wore a comfortable bathrobe and held a long, solid tree branch like a walking stick. They were talking to someone... to Sucy? With elf ears?

"We had a chat with the other guys," Sucy said, "and it looks like the Mind's Eye Theater people rented the same part of the park."

"But we've had this staked out for months," Diana said.

"Pun!" Akko said.

"Yes, child, it is. But why--who are they playing, anyway? Mage? Werewolf?"

"Vampire," Sucy said.

"Why the _hell_ are they playing _vampires_ in the _summer_ in the _park_?" Diana said.

Sucy shrugged. "They're callin' it 'Day For Night.' Some metaplot thing, sun substitutes for the moon, got 'til moonrise to..."

Akko--the Akko watching the video--said, "Diana?"

"Yeah?" Diana, the Diana she was seated with, said.

"Did... did we ever do this?" Akko said.

"No," Diana said.

On screen, Diana stormed around the clearing. "Dammit! Dammit, dammit, dammit! Akko, consult the rulebook. We're going to cross over. Friggin'... friggin'... vampire pansies..."

"Can-do!" Akko said, the video Akko, browsing the rulebook. "Oh, there's conversion notes! It says here 'when they throw rock, paper, or scissors, hit them with your boffo weapon. It really makes an impact.'"

"Akko..." Diana, the real(?) Diana, said. "Are we... are we _that nerdy_?"

"I don't know," Akko said, silently crying. "I don't know."

_Bad End. Try again for a better ending._

* * *

 

**2 POINTS: CHAOS ENDING**

...Hannah awakening with a gasp in a pool of water. Gray walls, light from a single, weak bulb. The floor was concrete, just concave enough for a pool of grimy water to congeal.

"Huh?" Akko said around a mouthful of Flake bar.

Diana said nothing, though she raised an eyebrow.

"Hello?" Hannah said, fumbling to her feet. "Teacher? Diana?" She waited a long moment before mumbling "Barbara?" She checked her belt; her wand was missing, as Akko and Diana could see. The walls seemed seamless, but Hannah felt along them anyway, seeking seams and cracks.

"Have you seen her today?" Akko said. "Or, like, lately?"

Diana shrugged.

Hannah slouched against the wall. "Please?" she said. "Anyone? ...even Barbara? ... Anyone?"

A glow emanated from stage right, eliciting a shriek of terror from Hannah; she shielded her eyes from the sudden brilliance and stumbled into a corner. After a long moment, a familiar voice played through an old television speaker. "Hey there, Hannah."

"Sucy?" Akko said.

"S-Sucy?" Hannah said, peering between her fingers at what Akko presumed was a TV screen.

"Hey, you remembered my name," Sucy said. "That's more than the other one could say."

"Oth--who else did you--did you do this to me, you--"

"Hey, hey," Sucy said. "Before we break out the strong language, I have an important question to ask you."

"This feels like she's about to be murdered," Akko said, knocking back a swig of Not-See Cola. "Is it just me?"

"Shh," Diana said. "I'm trying to listen."

Hannah at last acquiesced to Sucy's demands. "What? What do you want to ask, Sucy?"

"What do you think of the title 'Sucy's Stab-arinth?'"

"I think it's stupid and that you're a--"

The corner she was curled up in changed. The back wall crumbled like sugar stirred into tea. The view changed.

Hannah's room was one of many, all connected by winding corridors in a maze with no visible exit save what appeared to be holes in the ceiling with no ladders leading up out of them. The camera panned over the maze, paying particular attention to the monsters creeping, slithering, and sprinting through the darkness, baying their fear.

A picture-in-picture view of Sucy appeared in the corner; she was dressed formally but with blatantly makeup-enhanced cleavage. "Howdy, howdy, Luna Nova. Today, we're gonna see if your favorite nouveau riche is faster than a hodag or one of my hometown wakwaks. Oh, first contact's coming right up, look at that tatzlwurm melting his way through the walls!" Sucy tittered. "Looks like the game's about to begin on Sucy's Stab-arinth. Three, two--"

Akko paused the video.

"That's what she wanted to call our haunted house, yeah?" Akko said.

"It is," Diana said. "I think this is some kind of... some manner of alternate-dimension home video. If we had let Sucy take the lead, this is what would've happened."

Akko's phone rang, and she answered. "Akko speaking!"

"Are you with Diana?" Hannah said on the other end of the line. "Because I made her a very special gift and if you're present when she opens it it'll be ruined forever and it's all because of you, Kagari."

"I am," Akko said. "Are you now or have you recently been in a hole with monsters in it that Sucy put there?"

"Only metaphorically," Hannah said.

"Cool. Bye!" Akko hung up. "Okay, our Hannah's fine, it's okay to laugh at this."

"Ah, good to hear," Diana said. Tension left her neck and back and she finally relaxed into the couch. "You know, hand me that chocolate orange. That sounds like it'd be perfect."

"Wanna smack it, Di?"

"I do!" Diana said, and once she had the foil-wrapped chocolate in hand she smacked it against Akko's thigh, making a nice crisp sound as if she'd slapped the chocolate against a wooden desk. She peeled open the foil. The chocolate orange had bloomed into many perfect slices, its gentle scent wafting up and making her salivate. "Akko, thank you for working out. You are the perfect medium for breaking chocolate oranges."

Akko gave her a kiss, sneaking away a slice or two of chocolate orange during her distraction. "And you are the perfect girlfriend for watching another Hannah probably get murdered or eaten. A form of murder!"

"I love you," Diana said, smiling.

"I love you too," Akko said, hitting play.

The two laughed the night away [as Hannah ran for her life from shrieking nightmare hordes in an inescapable maze](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOrlMF7iWs8).

_Normal End. Try again for a better ending._

* * *

 

**1 POINT: NEUTRAL ENDING**

_...Beetlejuice._

A good time was had by all.

_Golden End. Congratulations; try again to witness the failiures you narrowly avoided through judicious choices._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PATCH NOTES  
> QTEs are presently unwinnable on mobile devices. This is of course foreverially [sic] un-patchable. Mobile readers are advised to weep black tears of despair over the beautiful experience they are missing out on foreverially.


	4. One Week

It all began when Diana read aloud from her phone while waiting her turn at the bowling alley.

Sucy never bowled, but she liked to freeload along to drink jugs of cocktails and play video games. Right now she was doing the former and sitting next to Diana on the round bench around the ball return. "Anything come up in entertainment news?" Sucy said, stirring her Mega Mojito to better distribute the mint flavor.

"Let's see," Diana said. "Telltale Games is finally making a Hudson Hawk series... my Nendo figure has been pre-selling quite briskly..."

"You get anything from those?" Sucy said.

"Less than you think," Diana said. "Ah, and Tom Holland accidentally--"

"Wait," Sucy said, holding up her finger. She took a long sip from her mojito. "Okay, continue."

"--ahem. Tom Holland accidentally confirmed his next solo outing is titled _Spider-Man: Home Base_. Quote: 'At last, Spider-Man will lay and be laid by Black Cat and the Steel Spider.'"

"Neat," Sucy said. "Isn't that right, Akko?"

Diana's heart ran cold. She looked slowly to the side and saw Akko, one foot on the lane, one foot on the ground, just in earshot from all the crashing balls and 90s music. Her eyes were narrowed, her fist clenched.

Two hours after seeing Infinity War, Akko had told her that she had blocked all Marvel news from every device she owned in order to minimize any and all spoilers. She'd spent much of the past few months feverishly plotting and conjecturing. Ant Man and the Wasp had been like Christmas for her.

"I'm sorry," Diana said.

"I bet you are," Akko said. Her ball rolled back into the return; she un-balled her hand expectantly and the ball leapt into it. She turned to the alley, electricitly cascading from her body in sheets, and flung her ball at the pins. The pins exploded into dust and every single pin in every other lane was sent sailing free of the little cave where they lived. Akko took a few deep breaths, wiped her brow, and stopmed back to the bench, pointedly seated on the opposite end from Diana. She crossed her arms and looked away.

Sucy giggled. Diana elbowed her in the face with a sharp crack. "Worth it," Sucy said, licking some of the indigo blood leaking from her broken nose.

The scoreboard filled out the rest of Akko's frames with Xes and deleted Diana, Lotte, and Amanda's entries.

Amanda looked up from her Virtual Boy. "Hey, what happened? I was practicing for my turn."

"Nothing," Akko said, returning her ball to its bag. "Let's go back home."

"Aaarrgh... fine." She wrapped her controller around the console. "More Nester practice for me, I guess."

Diana wiped away sweat suddenly pouring from her brow.

* * *

Diana paced around her gym. (The one in her dorm room, of course, with the speed bag, yoga mats, elliptical, and free weights.)

"Mother Mormo," she said, hushed.

"Daughter Mormo," she said, conversationally.

She grabbed the speedbag, pressed her forehead against it, and said in one long breathy whisper "Grandma Mormo why in your three names did I spoil Akko's movies for her?! Why did I have to be so stupid?!" She headbutt the speedbag. "Stupid. Stupid, stupid girl..."

She stood there with her head pressed against the speedbag for a long while, reflecting on the depths and breadth of her foolishness. There was a little flicker of realization that Sucy had baited her into even worse timing, but that was soon extinguished by shame over not recognizing the trap before fumbling into it.

She raised her head and looked her speedbag in where she imagined it would have eyes, if it had eyes. (Should she paint eyes on it? Or would that be--dammit, Diana, focus.) "I can fix this. Cavendish, you can fix this." She gently bopped the speedbag with her forehead. "You had better fix this."

* * *

"It's been a while since Akko's been..." Lotte said. "To see her so..."

"Mad?" Sucy said. "She's been mad before, it's not weird... though it is weird for me to be saying that about something that isn't a sex-type thing."

"No," Lotte said, "not mad. She's... she's angsty."

The two of them were seated on Sucy's bed, as neither of them wanted to get too close to Akko in her present mood. Shirtless, she lay in bed eating walnuts she cracked open with ab crunches. She ate each walnut with a slowly but inevitably-increasing vitriol.

"How can she even do that?" Lotte said.

"I heard that!" Akko said. "And the answer is that nothing busts a nut harder than Atsuko Kagari's tight abs."

Lotte felt an aneurysm approach.

"And I know that's phrasing!" Akko said, "'Cause that's why I said it! 'Cause I'm mad and when I'm mad I wanna feel sexy and I don't know why!"

"Oh thank God" Lotte said, wiping a trickle of blood from her nose.

Akko popped a fresh walnut into her belly button and did a sit-up, shattering its shell. "Friggin'... she _knew_ , man. She knew!" She crunched the nut open-mouthed. "Can't believe it. Can't _believe_ it." She reached into the bag without looking, popped the next in place, and snapped it open with a louder, higher-pitched crack than before. She checked her tummy. "Dammit, that was another ball bearing. Who even filled this freakin' bag?"

"Akko," Lotte said, "I know you might be mad, but I know for a fact Diana would never spoil you on purpose. In fact, I'm pretty sure Sucy was--"

"Yes," Sucy said, "it was me, Akko. It was me all along." She wriggled her shoulder such that it slipped free of her uniform; she leaned against Lotte and bat her one visible eye at Akko, lips gently parted. "Do you wanna punish me for that?"

Akko sighed. "No."

Sucy grunted and sat back upright...ish. "Well, whatever, I tried."

"It's... I know it's silly," Akko said. "And like half the stuff I've been thinking of is, like, who's coming back? Who's gonna look death in the eye and say 'nah, not today?'" She clapped her hand over her eyes. "I just got super salty and I shouldn'ta. Errgh. And I made a scene."

Lotte approached Akko and, finding her head was still attached to her neck and her neck to her body and her body to itself, alit her hand on Akko's shoulder. "It's alright. Just don't leave Diana hanging for too long, okay?"

"...Yeah," Akko said, sitting up. "Thanks, Lotte. You're a wise cup."

"Thank you," Lotte said. "What does that mean?"

"That you're a cup full of wisdom and tropical punch," Akko said, giving her a hug. "Now, give me a sec to call Diana and make sure she's cool."

* * *

Akko kicked in the door to the magical science lab. More accurately she kicked it straight off its hinges. "I came as fast as I could!" she said, galloping into the lab.

There were only two people and one cosmic phenomena in the lab: Avery juggling potion vials while her phone recorded her from its stand on a table a few feet away, Diana standing just out of the camera's recording range and reading from a hefty tome while gesturing with her wand, and right behind her was a glowing green dimensional portal, you know the kind. The portal had a WET FLOOR sign propped in front of it.

"Hello, Akko," Diana said, her calmness and smile rather forced. "So you know, I've found a way to fix my little accident from earlier."

"Diana, it's absolutely cool, I'm already not mad, it's superhumanly fine!"

"I insist," Diana said, raising her wand. "This will only help you forget the thing I told you earlier."

"It's cool, I'm fi--"

Diana cast the spell just as Avery completely dropped all of the potion vials she was juggling. There was a mighty explosion just as Diana fired the spell. The spell rebounded off of a piece of shattered glass and flew through a cloud of potion vapors before striking Diana right in the brainpan; in shock she stumbled, tripped over the WET FLOOR sign, and fell into the portal.

Avery coughed up a few live goldfish. "Damn, I just nearly broke my last record. Ah, that's aboot enough for today, anyway. Like and subscribe, bitches!" She popped a pair of peace signs just as Akko jumped over the puddle of spell juice and hefted her out of her seat.

"Avery!" Akko said. "What the hell did you just do?!"

"Juggle potions for my weekly Potion Juggler Challenge video, what up?"

Akko screamed and threw her out the window. Not that she saw, but Avery plummeted three stories through a cloud of broken glass onto Hannah and Barbara. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" Akko said. "Why does today have to suck so bad?!"

Lotte stumbled through the doorway, soaked with sweat and glasses fogged up well past the point of visibility. She gulped down air before saying "Wha' happun?"

"Diana's in trouble!" Akko said. "We gotta save her!"

"Okay," Lotte said, falling to the ground. "Please... let me... catch my... breath..."

"Alright," Akko said, pulling up a chair and her and Avery's phones, texting an SOS to everyone on both their contact lists. "But I'm not gonna like waiting."

* * *

Diana woke up face-down on a patch of gray soil. Her entire body ached, especially her head. She rolled onto her back, observing a night sky thick with green and ocher clouds. It felt wrong, though she couldn't quite place why. She sat up, looking down at her uniform, her scraped-up hands, the wand and tome lying near her.

What were they for? They looked important. She took the wand in hand, turning it over. Her fingers tingled where she touched it, as if it were charged with electricity.

A pressing question rose in her thoughts, and she vocalized it. "Who am I...?"

She looked to her right at the pair of floating egg-shaped, bunny-eared robots floating about a meter away. "Do you know?"

One of the egg robots floated over her her and cracked her over the head, knocking her cold.

"This one looks useful," the robot said, picking up the unconscious witch in a bridal carry, as is tradition. "This one is to be taken to the master. The master who is known to all and sundry as... _[Plundor, the Spoiler](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS5-QmkKzJQ)."_

The robot turned to an unseen audience and waited for applause.

"Dude," the other robot said, "shut the fuck up."

"This is my moment, dammit," the first robot said. "You can't just let the air out before it even passes."

"I did, and I will," the second robot said, engaging a flamethrower.

"Wait, wait," the first robot said, "if you fire that now you may toast the prisoner and then neither of us will get... I dunno. Paid, maybe?"

"Plundor hasn't paid either of us ever. He manufactured us. We're not employees, we're property."

"Well... maybe he'll pay us severance if we quit."

"Great plan. Give him a valuable whatever-she-is and then quit once he pays you. Shows real confidence in his brand name."

"Look, I'll... I'll think it over. We have time."

"Sure we do."

The two robots floated back towards the fortress of Plundor the Aforementioned Spoiler.

TO BE CONTINUED IN DAY 5: "SPOILING DIANA"


	5. Rabbit Habits

Akko stood before the swirly green portal from last time, ramrod-straight as she addressed the congregation of mighty heroes (Lotte, Sucy, Prof. Finneran, Prof. Nelson [Chariot had a prior engagement and couldn't make it]). "Everybody get freakin' ready," she said, pumping a shotgun she had, "'cause we gotta save Diana before she dies or something."

"'Eyyo, where the hell did you get my shotty from?" Prof. Nelson said.

"It was lying on one of the tables and I didn't see your name on it. I mean, I saw a name but not yours."

"Yeah, I got the stock engraved with the message engraved on the stock of the shotty from _Christian Humber Reloaded_ , 'cause that shit's amazin'. So can I use it or somethin' 'cause it's kinda mine?"

"You have a wand!" Akko said.

"Yeah, well you do too, bitch!" Nelson said, flipping her off.

"Please, Adrian," Finneran said, gently lowering Nelson's arm. "Let me. Ahem. Atsuko Kagari, surrender that gun to Nelson or I'll... give you detention."

"Come on, I know how to use this. I killed like fifty dudes in Las Vegas and I used a gun... uh, well, I didn't actually kill anyone with one, but I totally fired it a bunch. I had to heal my ears after and everything!"

"Awright," Nelson said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Show me where th'safety is."

Akko, finger on the trigger of a loaded shotgun with a shell in the chamber, swept the barrel across everyone in the room and pointed in the approximate direction of Diana's room. "The safety Diana deserves is over there, and I'm gonna use the gun to help her get it."

"...I'll let you borrow Rhyme and Reason," Nelson said.

"Deal," Akko said, throwing the shotgun at her like a javelin. Nelson jumped out of the way and it clattered to the ground.

"Jesus, don't throw shit at me, you know I ain't catchin' shit!"

"Well, it was faster than walking over there!" Akko said.

"We're all gonna die," Sucy said, relieved.

* * *

The witch named Diana, not that she remembered, came to once more in what smelled like a cavern flooded with stagnant rainwater. As her vision cleared and she rose into a seated position, she realized that against all odds she was not in a cave but indoors, some place that smelled abandoned despite the functioning machinery all around her all carrying on in their own idiosyncratic ways. There were dials and steam vents, but no clear purpose to anything, like a child's drawing of a factory floor.

"Friggin' finally," the first hovering egg-shaped rabbit-eared robot said. "Plundor, behold, this thing that I got you!"

"I'm not a thing," Diana said, despite her uncertainty.

She was answered by a low, fey chuckle from the shadows. "Oh, my dear, I wouldn't say that just yet. For you are now the property of Plundor, the Spoiler." Plundor stepped out of the shadows, his yellow eyes aglow.

Plundor the Spoiler was six foot five if he was an inch, with an extra six inches of bunny ears from his head, which was that of a rabbit's. He was covered entirely in soft pink fur which was not fluffy enough to conceal that he was massively, ripplingly muscular. He wore a fuchsia mantle connected to his maroon boxer-briefs, neither of which significantly concealed anything. Also he had wrestlers' boots and opera gloves.

Diana contemplated his appearance for a few seconds. "I'm gay," she said, matter-of-factly.

"Well. Good to know. Or is that your name?" Plundor said.

"No, it's not. I just--I just took one look at you, and then I thought, 'oh, that's what 'gay' would look like if I had to draw it for somebody.' And then that fact just sort of--popped in there."

Plundor furrowed his brow. "Hrrm. I guess I can't contest that. Anyhow, I see that there's a wand near you--are you a magic-user, yon gay?"

"I... maybe?" Diana looked to her left, where the second robot hovered over the wand and book. She took them each in hand. The wand didn't feel "charged" so much as it felt directly plugged in to a wall socket. "Alright. Let's see." She flipped through the tome as it lay on the ground. "Let's see... 'Regarding the Presence of Automatons.'" She pointed her wand at the first robot. " _Cai fora robo_!"

She felt warmth surge from her head to her hand and burst free from the tines at the tip of the wand. Green light flashed into the first robot, which began disintegrating.

"Ohhh fuck it hurts it hurts I wasn't programmed to feel pain and it hurts!" it said, its last words a noisy snarl of agony as it collapsed into metal dust on the ground.

"Mother Mormo!" Diana said, staring at her wand.

"Who?" Plundor said.

"I don't know," Diana said. "Aren't--I just killed that thing, don't you care?"

"Care? I have a factory, friend. I can make endless numbers of him." Plundor whistled. A new robot hovered in place over the remains of robot no. 1. "In fact, I insist you kill the other one."

"Wait," robot no. 2 said. "Wait! I didn't even want to kidnap you!"

"I... I'd rather not?" Diana said.

"Ah, if that's your wish," Plundor said. "That said... I must insist you look the part, my new friend who is attracted to her fellow women. Machines, fetch me the Cuniculous Raiments! Dress her."

"I can dress myself," Diana said, clenching her shirt buttons for emphasis.

"Ah, right. Sorry, got ahead of myself. And somebody find this woman a privacy curtain."

* * *

"Alright," Diana said, looking down at her new evil outfit. "I'm not sure about the aesthetics of this."

Diana's new monstered-out look consisted of a pink rabbit mascot costume with the face sliced off the head so hers was plainly visible. It was shapeless, poorly-ventilated, and smelled like the mice that Robot 2 had shaken out of it while he (it?) was bringing the Raiment to her.

"You look fine," Plundor said with a soft hand gesture that sent a wave of air wafting over Diana. Seated on his throne (one of the machines was in fact an ornate chair), his hands became enormously oversized, as were his shins and feet, like someone had completely failed to use correct foreshortening. "Anyhow. I hereby dub you... what is your name, again?"

"I don't know," Diana said. A mouse crawled out of her uniform through the face mask; she was less startled than she somehow anticipated being. There was something about the bright-eyed little mousie that made her feel more... happy.

"You look like a 'Penny' to me. I hereby dub you Penny the Spoiler. You shall carry on my work of conquering planets, strip-mining them of their mineral wealth, and magically ensconcing their planetary verdancy in a mystic liquid, like that one there!" He pointed at a test tube of viscous liquid that somehow made Diana feel antsy. "Because Lord knows I'm not siring my own little coney anytime soo--"

A wall exploded and a spectacularly beautiful young woman stepped through the wreckage, tripping over a fallen brick and cracking her nose on the cold ground. She hopped back to her feet, nose bleeding profusely. "'hem, pardon. Yo, I'm here to save you, Diana!"

Diana's heart beat faster. "Who?" she said.

"You know... you. Crap, that's the amnesia spell, isn't it?" the beautiful woman said, sighing. "Well, whatever! I'm gonna save you 'cause that's what I do!"

"I'm Diana," Diana said. "I like that name."

"Ex-cyuse me," Plundor said, "who in the hell are you people?"

Akko turned to face Plundor and blurted "I'm gay."

"You too, huh?"

"Yeah, man, no offence, but I look at you and it's like 'Wow, if I had to draw a picture of the idea of gay, you'd be it.' And I'm gay, so hey!"

Sucy crept through the hole behind Lotte, Finneran, and Nelson, who lined up alongside Akko. "Zharlloigor," she said, "that's the final boss?"

"You'd better believe it," Plundor said, slapping his own chest in pride and knocking the wind out of himself what with his hand now being gigantic. "Hoof. Pardon. I am Plundor, the Spoiler, rightful ruler of the planet you're standing on!"

"More like the _rightful_ destroyer!" said a horrifying woman with a horrifying bright red chicken head who was suddenly standing with the Luna Nova witches like she belonged there.

"Jesus fuck!" Nelson said, shouldering her shotgun and shooting the bird woman in the head. The bird woman exploded.

"...ow," Finneran said, casting a healing spell on her eardrums.

"Nice," Sucy said, slipping Nelson a fiver.

"Anyway!" Lotte said, skipping ahead of the rest of the team, "We'll just be taking Diana back now."

"I think not," Plundor said. "Robot hordes, kill these fools!" Plundor pointed, no small thing with the giant hands. A few dozen of the egg robots emerged from a corridor with clubs and axes in hand.  
"Uh, can I sit this one out?" Robot 2 said, hovering behind Diana, "I've kinda had a long day, I saw my roomie get--"

Akko leaped into the air, Rhyme and Reason in her hands, and brought them both down on Robot 2's dome. Rhyme and Reason were Nelson's twin short-chainsaws she had commissioned after watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2 at the tender age of 13, and Robot 2 died outrageously.

Diana was soaking wet. "Mother Mormo," she whispered.

"[Let's beat some asses, kids!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s1Jsz1lj1Y)" Nelson said, charging the robots gun a-blazin'.

Lotte sang and the misshappen spirits of the machinery around her awoke, turning on the rabbit robots. Finneran cast a few buff spells and sprayed devastating attack spells into the fracas.

"Wanna come with?" Akko said, gesturing with Reason (the chainsaw in her left hand).

"Do we do this all the time?" Diana said.

"Every weekend, basically," Akko said. She had the goofiest smile, honest and huge and asymmetrical. Diana wanted nothing more than to kiss that smiling goofball. She leaned in, and Akko gently leaned back. "You're all amnesia'd out, that'd be rude."

"So considerate," Diana said. "Are you sure you don't want a kiss?"

"It'd be a little weird," Akko said.

"It's not weird, you're girlfriends," Sucy said, walking away from the robot fight. "I've seen you make out lots of times."

"We're--" Diana sputtered. "We're _girlfriends_?!"

"Yeah, basically!" Akko said. "I mean, we're girls and we're friends and we make out like all the damn time." She threw Rhyme at a rabbitron, holding tight to the choke chain such that after it impaled the robot she yanked it back to her hand (that's how physics works, right?).

"Yes," Diana said, "that's what a girlfriend is."

"I like to think of us as future wives," Akko said.

Diana was sweaty and panting, her face flush. "Take me now."

"You smell like dirty mice and that rabbit man is watching."

"...granted."

"Wanna kill some robots, though? Work out your whim-wams that way?"

"Yes, m'am!" Diana said.

"Too late," Nelson said, kicking a severed midsection away. "Beat ya to it."

"Aww," Akko said.

"Wait a minute!" Plundor said. "I have factories pumping those out at a rate of fifty a minute! How could I have run out?"

"Here!" Lotte said, waving a manifest one of the machine spirits brought her. "It says here you said 'I want fifty robots in a minute' and your workers programmed the manufacturing plants to create exactly fifty in a minute and then shut down forever."

"I knew I should've enunciated that better," Plundor said. "Well, then! I'm glad I had all my workers melted to death when I was done with them! I'll have to hire new workers. Elsewhere. As this planet has been strip-mined to nothing and its life rendered extinct! And now that I have spoiled my new inheritor Diana, there will be two Spoilers spoiling the universe!"

"Nice exposition, Frank From Donnie Darko," Sucy said, standing near the beaker of liquid. "You're not using this, are you?"

"I certainly am!" Plundor said, pointing his finger up. "For you see, that will fetch millions of dollars on the open market--even billions! A--"

Sucy flung a flask of poison at him, which Nelson shot out of the air, raining what proved to be maximum-strength super-acid onto Plundor. It was not a pleasant sight. "Hare today," Sucy said, "gone tomorrow. We're done, yeah?" She yanked the flask of green liquid--it was nearly the size of her chest--free from its little beaker stand thing.

"We absolutely are," Finneran said, cracking her neck back in place. "This late unpleasantness is done with at last. We can restore Diana's memory and pour ourselves some tea."

"And then relax in the teacher's lounge.  With all our clothes on.  Inn't that right, bitch?" Nelson said, slapping Finneran's ass.

"Not. In. Front. Of. The students," Fineran said in a harsh whisper.

"Wait," Lotte said. "Shouldn't we try and help the locals out first? I mean, we have some time before dinner."

"Nah," Sucy said, cradling the large vial of green liquid. "Then we'd have to split the loot with the locals, and that shit's lame. By the by, dibs on--"

Diana raised her wand and said "Murowa." The spell burst the vial, raining green liquid on the floor and not anywhere near Sucy to her visible despair. The entire building around them faded away, and they stood in the midst of an endless green plain, alien plants and animals frolicking in the restored paradise planet.

"Awww," Sucy said, kicking the dirt.

"Let's get to the portal before somebody makes a speech about conserving the environment," Nelson said, pointing at the portal a few dozen yards away.

A spectacularly buff man seated on a silvery chair appeared in a shimmery haze nearby. The man wore a funky mask and a shining metal breastplate and bikini briefs.

"In today's story," he said in a calm and reverberating timbre, "Diana Cavendish came to the aid of a--" Nelson clubbed him in the head with the butt of her shotty, knocking him cold (and bleeding scalp-blood profusely from under his mask).

" _Thank_ you," Diana said, taking Akko's hand. "We can hold hands, right? Even if my memory's not what it should be?"

"You better believe it," Akko said, nearly kissing her before realizing it wouldn't be cool.

* * *

Within the hour Diana was free of her rabbit costume, showered up, and in possession of her memories. In three-one-two order.

Diana stepped out of her shower, wrapped in a fluffy towel, feet nice and secure in mousie slippers. "Ah," she sighed. "I needed that."

Akko was waiting for her on her bed, reading a magazine. "Hey," she said, sheepish. "You feelin' better?"

"Much better," Diana said, sitting next to her.

"Diana," Akko said, "I'm sorry I got so mad at you over an accident."

"It's alright," Diana said, touching her face. "I'm sorry I got us all into such trouble."

"No harm, no foul," Akko said.

They kissed. They had done a lot of kissing after hard times, mysterious adventures, curiously frequent incidents where, after taking or contemplating drastic action in light of a bad mental state, Diana fell or was pulled into a hole and got monstered out by otherworldly sponsors. Every single time they kissed, it was like the world began again.

"Hey," Akko said. "Next time somebody monsters out, I'll try to be the one who monsters out instead."

"This is only, what, the second time?" Diana said, smiling.

"I wanna say third," Akko said. "You ever... was it a dream, maybe? The time you turned into a glow-eyed space monster?"

Diana covered her mouth. "I think I've had that one. Maybe I told you about it."

"It was real gross and monstery. ... I had white hair, didn't I? For some reason? I think I'd look cool with white hair."

"Maybe you could try it out sometime," Diana said.

"Maybe!" Akko said.

Akko put her hand on Diana's leg. The feelings Akko inspired in her, suspended through the process of healing and bathing, returned in full force.

"Let's do it," Diana breathed.

"Yes, m'am!" Akko said, starry-eyed.

Diana was well-spoiled that night.

(So was Finneran, who--ah, that's a story for another week. Another, much filthier week.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plundor, the horrifying chicken woman, and the rough plot of yesterday and today are based on the Masters of the Universe episode "Quest For He-Man," which is somehow from fairly early on in the series for how completely bereft of ideas and animation quality it is--even relative to Filmation's usual near-total lack of animation quality.


	6. Take Me Somewhere Nice

[It began at the Jennifer Memorial Tree.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luM6oeCM7Yw)

Akko touched her rough-barked trunk. "Man," Akko said. "Hard to believe it's been a year since I got shot here."

"Well... a few meters this way," Diana said, and hoped it was the right thing to say. Akko laughed. Daughter Mormo be praised. "Not the best way to begin a relationship, was it?"

"There were days I hated you," Akko said. "Especially that first week when I pissed blood every time I went to the bathroom. You nailed me right in the kidney, man."

Diana winced. "Even after the healing spells?"

"Oh, baby. You're lucky I'm invincible." Akko turned to Diana at last, smiling, to show her nothing was wrong. "I'm not still mad about it. I'd have said something if I was, you know? I mean, it'd be weird, too..."

Akko scratched her hair.

"...after the whole Hive invasion thing," she said.

Diana blinked. "After what?"

Akko blinked in turn. "The... Diana, are you okay? Did you change medications? Are you on something new?"

Akko's hair was milk-white, silky, and limp, hanging around her shoulders like she'd just stepped out of the shower. Her eyelashes were white, too. With her ember-red eyes, she looked like an albino.

The strength left Diana's legs and she stumbled to the stone walkway around Jennifer.

* * *

"...after the missile crisis," Akko said.

Diana blinked. "After what?"

Akko blinked in turn. "After the... you know, the space missile fight? Saved the world?"

There was a dog next to Diana, its shoulders as high as her waist. Its ludicrously fluffy fur was white with toasted-marshmallow-tan highlights. It had a wise, smiling face. It wore a vest that had the words SERVICE ANIMAL printed in five languages. " _U-re-re,_ " it went.

Akko felt like she had taken a step off the top floor of a building, something she'd done repeatedly in her short but, in hindsight, stupendously eventful life. "I think I'm having a psychotic break," she said. "Can you look up the symptoms real quick?"

"On what?"

"Your phone."

"I don't have a phone."

"You've had a phone since Croix got fired."

"Croix still works here, Atsuko."

The sense of vertigo was accented with a sense of pure terror. "Oh, shit. Where's--where's Nelson? I gotta borrow Rhyme and Reason." Every muscle in her body locked in place, paralyzed by sheer uncertainty of where she should be running first.

Diana walked towards her. Her voice was soft: "Nelson's dead, dear."

"Did Croix kill her?!"

"No. She was Taken."

"Taken _where_?!" Akko said, and she realized that she was screaming it at the top of her lungs. She was soaked with pouring sweat, knees trembling. She stumbled back into Jennifer, sinking to the earth at her roots.

The dog got to her before Diana did; Akko clamped on and pat his fluffy fur. She felt a little better. When Diana hugged her, she felt a little more better.

* * *

When Akko hugged her, she felt a little better.

"I'm here," she said. "Breathe."

"Oryx," Diana said. "Who is Oryx?"

"The Taken King. He's a big space jerk with an undead alien army. We fought off his bad guys." Akko nuzzled her cheek. "Are you sure you don't remember?"

"No," Diana said.

Akko hiccupped.

"You're..." She stopped. "Where's Traveler?"

"Who?"

"Your dog. He was here. Now he's not."

"Akko, I don't know what's happening."

"I don't either," Akko said. "But we'll figure it out. Diana, can I see your tongue?"

"...Why?"

* * *

Diana opened her mouth. There was a symbol printed on her tongue, a series of curved lines creating something like a V with a three-spired tower growing from it, the lines of the spire forming four diamonds. She closed her mouth. "I was Taken by Oryx, the Taken King. I did horrible things. And then you saved me."

"Cool," Akko said. Traveler licked her chin. "I'm glad that worked out."

"Your hair," Diana said. "I... I don't know how I didn't see it earlier."

"Did I shave it all off?" Akko said.

Diana thought for a moment. "You don't need to know. May I touch it?"

"Sure."

Diana did so. Her hands were rough, her fingernails rough from gnawing, but they were Diana's hands, another Diana's hands. Silently, stoically, Diana began to cry.

"I never had the chance," she said. "Before, I mean. You had lovely hair."

"Lovelier after I started dating you," Akko said. "You taught me about, like, volumizing shampoos and that conditioner does something."

"It does," Diana said, pretending to laugh.

"I'm so glad we're dating here and there. I don't know where I'd be if it weren't for you." Akko closed her eyes and rest her head against the bark of Jennifer. "Jesus Christ, what's happening to me?"

* * *

"Jesus Christ," Akko said, "remind me not to vacay in Waikiki."

"It wasn't so bad," Diana said. "We made truly proficient love. And I'd be lying if I said it wasn't some of the most fun I'd had... in a final analysis, well away."

The albino Akko had stayed with her here at the base of Jennifer. It felt as if days had passed. They may have. Time had not ground to a halt; it churned and surged like a stormy sea.  
"This is going to be our life now, isn't it?" Akko said. "Killing time under a tree, telling stories, 'til something happens or doesn't happen." A long pause. "Maybe we're dead. Maybe this is heaven. We get to be together and tell stories about lives we've lived for a long time and get to be here together... I said that twice, didn't I."

"It's important," Diana said.

"...you know," Akko said, "if that's the case... I'd like it if we could visit our other buddies too. Not that I don't love you forever but I'd miss them."

"I would, too," Diana said, resting her head on Akko's shoulder.

* * *

Akko rested her head on the once-Taken Diana's shoulder.

"Maybe I'll wake up," she said, "and maybe I won't, and this is just my life now." She squeezed Diana's hand. "If it is, I promise I'll write a book about it and call it something cool and make a pile of money. And Mirei Kiritani is gonna play me in the movie."

Diana's hand clenched tight around hers.

"Akko," she said, "we're not alone."

* * *

"Akko," she said, looking at the stranger, "we're not alone."

Two voices. Two Dianas.

The stranger stood on the walkway around Jennifer. She was short, a little shorter than Akko. She was blonde, a darker shade than Diana's, informed perhaps by other genes. Her eyes were Akko's ember-red. She was wearing... what, a robe? A golden robe, trimmed black. She wore a glowing armband on her left bicep; it projected a glowing black-and-white image, a symbol. Attached to her hip was a gruesomely huge pistol, like a gold-and-white revolver with a studded ebony orb in lieu of a cylinder.

Akko and Diana stood. Both of them.

["Who are you?"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMXA2_AKWwQ) the Akkos said.

The woman spoke. "I don't know." Her lip trembled. "Everybody forgets when they come back as Guardians. I mean... some people found out, by accident, or by luck. But when we come back we forget everything we used to be so we can fight the Darkness."

"What do they call you?" the Dianas said.

"Hilde," she said. "Short for Hildegard." She breathed. "After the saint."

Time turned on its axis.

For a brief, beautiful second, the future unveiled; yet to be written, always having been written. A gemstone in bedrock. Endless, infinite choice, remembered forever.

"When we have you..." Diana said, "that's what we'll name you."

"Hildegard," Akko said. "Hildegard Cavendish...-Kagari."

"Really, Akko," Diana said.

"I like my name, it's cool," Akko said, laughing and crying all at once. "And she deserves to know, you know? Her mothers' names. Isn't that right, Diana?"

Hilde managed a smile.

"Do you know the name Oryx?" Diana said.

"Know?" Hilde said, smirking. "Me and my lady, we killed his ass forever. My girl, Titania? Made his sword to a better sword, had our good buddy stick his soul in a gun..." Her expression changed to one extremely familiar to Diana for all the times she'd seen it plastered on Akko's face just before something burst into flame. "...the gun that exploded recently. _Sheeeeeit_. Writing that one down. Gotta get back to it."

"Hey, worse comes to worse, just kick his ass again," Akko said, gesturing dismissively. "Nobody fights a Kagari twice."

"Make sure his shadow never darkens the universe again," Diana said, firmly.

Hilde gave them a deep bow. ["I'll make sure."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hTgvNsqb9Y)

* * *

The moment passed.

Diana and Akko stood hand-in-hand.

The dog was gone.

"Diana," Akko said, "can I see your tongue real quick?"

"What was wrong with the other one's tongue?" Diana said.

"Nevermind," Akko said, and oh boy was her heart beating like a jackhammer. "I think I need to take a seat, though."

"I agree," Diana said, and the two flopped to the grass.

"We should get a dog," Akko said.

"I agree," Diana said.

"Are we definitely going to have a daughter?" Akko said. "'Cause, uh, I don't know if I wanna plan that far ahead."

"We don't have to," Diana said. "Maybe we will. Maybe we won't. All that matters is we have a name."

"Oh, you're really going to go with the mystery future magic gunslinger's na... okay, yeah, I can't beat that."

"What were you going to suggest, hm?"

"I'm kinda partial to..." She mumbled.

"Let me guess. 'Chariot?'"

"Yeah."

"No thank you."

"Awww."

There were endless questions, endless possibilities, and they could all wait. They had a lifetime to be answered.

* * *

The moment passed.

Diana and Akko stood hand-in-hand.

Akko's hair was white once more.

"Well," Akko said, "does that mean we live at least nine and a half more months?"

"...why 'half?'" Diana said.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be in the mood to bang for, like, a week. That was weird. That was really weird." She wiped at the tears under her eyes. "Plus, like, it means one of us is gonna have to... you know..."

"There are clinics for that," Diana said. "You could always transform and--"

"Wait. So did you just volunteer to carry her?"

"Purely in the abstract," Diana said. "If it came to it."

"You've got depression and you're still learning how to eat. I'm calling the baby when the baby's time to get called. Okay?"

"We'll see," Diana said, kissing her tear-streaked cheek. "When the time comes... if the time comes."

"Yeah. When and if."

Traveler howled, probably at nothing.

* * *

Hilde sank to her knees. The Vex relic fell from her hands. Titania rushed to her side, enormous, powerful, comforting.

"Are you alright?" she said, softly.

"Yeah... mostly," Hilde said. "Just remind me, next time I take a bet from my Dead Orbit buddies, we're doing it for Crucible marks instead."

Titania furrowed her brow.

"'Cause I suck at Crucible. It's a joke, babe."

"You call that a joke? We should take you to Ikora, the Vex have propagated into your brain and removed your sense of humor."

"Aw, shit, does that mean I have to grump at Guardians for keeping my dumb ass alive another day?"

"I sincerely hope not," Titania said, and kissed her.

Hilde ran her hands along Titania's smooth, dark-skinned head. "So," she said, "it turns out I'm a second generation lesbian. Not a lot of people can call that." She smirked. "And there was definitely Light before the Traveler arrived. Proof. I seen it."

"I believe you," Titania said, and she did.

The two spent a long and lovely night together in the Tower. Not that they knew it, but they celebrated a long-lasting tradition in the Cavendish-Kagari bloodline: the day Diana Cavendish shot Atsuko Cavendish-Kagari in the kidney, prompting a week of pissed blood, which in time became the day Diana Cavendish made an honest woman of Atsuko Cavendish-Kagari, prompting a week of things exploding that should be left well-enough intact.

The Traveler hung over the First City. The universe was vast and full of horrors uncountable, past and future; the present was uncertain, the past and future locked in eternal quantum superposition. Nothing could ever be guaranteed, least of all the future of two lovestruck oddities in a time of crisis.

But tonight, [everything that could love had sweet dreams.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=163_C5UVU-I)


	7. Lesbian Seagull

A vast black airship hovered in the air over Luna Nova, oceans of magma flowing from the gaping maws of depleted uranium gargoyles embedded in its sides. The five-branched Sign of the Three blazed on its sides, the occult power of the Sign threatening to blow the vehicle in its entirety to flinders. Titan speakers bellowed a deafening missive to the terrified witches below:

"THE LUNA NOVA DOUBLE-DATE... PLUS ONE... WILL COMMENCE IN FIFTEEN MINUTES. PRAISE THE ALMIGHTY IDIOT! PRAISE THE BLACK GOAT! PRAISE THE ALL-IN-ONE!"

The airship finally exploded, showering flaming, occultly-radioactive debris across the grounds of Luna Nova.

Sucy stared out the window, bored out of her skull. "They really need a cheaper alternative for when the PA system is down."

"Luna Nova got a bunch of 'em free in the sixties... for some reason!" Akko said, leafing through a helpful pamphlet. "So hey, smoke 'em if you got 'em."

"Zhar _lloigor_ , would I smoke 'em if I got 'em," Sucy said.

"Aw, come on, this is gonna be fun!" Akko said. "You need to chill out, smell the roses, enjoy the... rose bushes."

"If you insist." Sucy fainted dramatically onto her bed.

"Now get dressed, we gotta meet our dates in fourteen minutes!"

"I _am_ dressed."

* * *

"Well, here we are at the leyline terminal!" Akko said.

"And it's only a little bit on fire," Sucy said, stomping on one smoldering on the grass near her feet (else she wouldn't have bothered).

A stretch limousine drove out of the terminal right on time, pulling a dangerous-looking hairpin turn to swing the passenger-side doors open for Akko, Sucy, and Lotte. Their dates sat inside.

Diana leaned out, a fetching blue shawl tilting out of the vehicle. "Why, hello, beautiful," she said.

Akko was dressed in a sporty blouse and shorts in bright spring colors. Lotte wore a dark blue dress with her silver bridge necklace worn on the outside for once. Sucy wore a novelty Sucy onesie she'd licensed out, accessorized with her ankle monitor.

"Hello yourself, babe!" Akko said, diving into the limo followed shortly by her buddies. She wriggled up to Diana and hugged her. "Can't wait, can't wait to see, can't wait to see the thing! Where we goin'?"

From a plush throne facing the rest of the seats in the back came the snap and hiss of a struck match. Annabel Creme's soft face illuminated by match was an island of light and color in a sea of darkness. She held the match near but not at the tip of a cigar which was three cigars twisted together. She didn't actually light it by the time she waved the match out and she returned to darkness. "Someplace cool," Annabel said. "You'll dig it."

"Oh, I've been keeping it a secret all week," Lotte said, vibrating intently as she fumbled into the darkness next to Annabel, her date.

"Musta been hard," Wangari said, waiting for Sucy to insinuate herself into the seatbelt next to her. "Sup," Wan said, tapping her ankle monitor against Sucy's.

"Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks," Lotte said. "With Diana and Akko taking that day trip to Texas, with the big scholastic fair, Diana tripping into that dimension hole after the bowling trip, that temporally dissociative event you had yesterday..."

"Oh, we had movie night, too!" Akko said. "We watched _Beetlejuice_."

"I got the Chaos Ending," Sucy said. "Way better."

"You would say that," Wangari said, slugging her shoulder softly.

"When did those two start dating?" Annabel said. "Has Sucy even seen Wangari before?"

"They bonded in Vegas," Akko said. "You know, after our famous school year!"

"Hm," Annabel said. "I can't help but feel like that's cheating in a cosmic sense."

The limo started up and trundled its way through the leyline terminal, not before accidentally sideswiping Hannah and Barbara into a pile of burning, razor-sharp depleted uranium garbage to make up for two days of not getting sick wrecked.

* * *

"Well, here we are in Blytonbury!" Akko said.

"Don't tempt fate by doing that joke twice," Diana said, patting her on the back.

"That said," Sucy said, "this looks like a nightclub and I don't know if my ankle bracelet will like that." She leaned towards the club, a plain black cube interrupting a line of buildings approaching a thousand years in age. Her monitor didn't beep. "Okay... inching forward..."

"You're cool," Annabel said, walking past her, her dress swooshing behind her like a cape. She wore a floor-length lacy black number, as that seemed to be the entirety of her wardrobe, though this had gothic accents in white lace and pearl. From this dress she withdrew a small green transmitter, or so they all presumed from the steady blinking light and Bluetooth symbol. "As long as you two are within one hundred meters you'll be fine, even if we go to a bowling alley or arcade." She slipped the transmitter back in her dress. "Also, uh, what exactly crimes did you guys pull off? I was in Spain that week."

"Eh, it's a long, explicit-rated story," Sucy said.

"In progress," Wangari said.

"It'll get told."

"Hopefully."

"'hem," Annabel said. "You two stick to the first floor. They'll have plenty for you plus-ones to do."

"Hey!" Wangari said. "What makes you think we won't wanna wander to the second floor? Or the basement? Whichever?"

Annabel gestured for them to come closer. She whispered to them.

"Yeah, you got me there," Sucy said.

"Yeah, top floor's fine," Wangari said. "You guys go nuts." She gestured grandly to the door. "After you, kids."

For seven in the evening... okay, five out of six of them had no idea what club demographics were like, but at this time of day it was a freakin' ghost town. A lonely bartender polished a glass as all bartenders do at all hours of the day; the DJ was taking a nap in his booth, easy listening pumping through the speakers at a modest volume.

"Party central," Sucy said, slithering onto the dance floor and rolling around.

"Is there gonna be a monster fight here?" Akko said, her hand inching to her wand. "It feels like there's gonna be one."

"It's cool," Annabel said, "We're cool." Lotte picked up the hem of her skirt so she could leap over the rolling Sucy, Lotte leaping right after her. "Follow my lead. And put the damn axe down, Diana."

"Oh, this?" Diana said, stepping away from the in-case-of-fire box she'd just kicked open. "It... uh... was... an... accident."

"Ha ha! _Acc_ -ident."

Annabel climbed onto a bar stool and addressed the bartender. "Good evening, Collins."

"Evenin', Rebecca," the bartender said. "Nice day, isn't it?"

"It's a nice day if it doesn't rain."

"It's always a nice day if it doesn't rain."

"If the sun isn't too warm." She placed her culebra cigar(s?) in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully on the cap(s?).

The bartender turned and reached for a bottle of Bunratty Meade on the drink rack. He pulled on its neck and the bottle tilted with an audible click. A part of the back wall opened, the door having been hidden with cleverly-drawn lines and scatterings of glistening rhinestone on the wall. The door opened on a stairwell; there was music floating up from below, darker, more charged. "As you were, m'am."

"Thank you, Collins," Annabel said, leaving a fifty-pound tip. "Ladies." Annabel hopped off the stool and, with Lotte holding up her skirt once more, descended the staircase.  
Diana looked at Akko; Akko at Diana, who had pried the axe out of the fire box. (Phrasing? No, Lotte was silent.)

"Do you know how to use that?" Akko said.

"I mainly use swords," Diana said, "if I can help it. But I've trained with axes."

"Alright. If I find a sword, we're trading."

The two witches descended after their friends, ready for what was sure to be a surfeit of trouble.

Sucy and Wangari sat at the bar. "Yo," Sucy said, "can we get some absinthe over here?"

"The hell? I just want a Cuba Libre," Wangari said.

"Cuba Libre for my gal, absinthe for the dom in this particular relationship."

"I'm gonna need to see some I.D.," the bartender (it was unclear if his name was really Collins) said.

Sucy propped her monitored ankle onto the bar. "As you can see, that's an adult ankle monitor."

The bartender nodded. "As you wish."

* * *

"Diana?" Akko said, aiming her wand at the door at the bottom of the staircase. Gothy music seeped through the gaps in the threshold. "I can smell blacklights."

"Me too," Diana said. "If you see any unusual stains, start lighting everything on fire. Burn until there's nothing left. ... While we're underground and surrounded by historical landmarks. Mother Mormo, I have not thought this plan through."

"How's about I open with lecktricksiky and we go from there?"

"Good call." Diana adjusted her grip on her axe. "Alright. Count of three."

"Three!" Akko said, jump-kicking over the bottom five steps and through the door--well, the plan was "through the door," for practical purposes she just knocked it off its hinges and skated along the floor a few meters. She aimed her wand at the nearest humanoid shape and shouted "Make peace with your gods, coffin stuffers, or you're gonna have a long awkward conversation at the pearly gates!"

She stared down the sights at Lotte, who threw her arms up. "Ponzi!" she said.

"They got you sellin' cakes and sending the cake money upstream, Lotte?" Akko said. "Point me at the cake-sellin' bastard and I'll blast 'em and then eat all his cakes and then we can call the cops! Please say it's cakes and not seed packets."

Annabel, seated next to Lotte on a throne of blessedly artificial skulls and thigh bones, pinched the bridge of her nose. "That's the club safe word, Akko. This is a vampire roleplay club hidden beneath the Licorice Earring."

"A what now?" Akko said. Diana gently touched her head and turned her like a turret gun to look at her surroundings.

The vampire roleplay club was packed with a couple dozen twentysomethings in various states of dress from "gigantic Victorian" to "functionally naked but for pasties." The only uniformity was the sheer dominance of black, the brightest color being Lotte's necklace. The club itself was mostly gray and red, perhaps so the attendees wouldn't be camouflaged, furnished with antique-style furniture good for fainting and lounging, the walls adorned with gothy paintings and spatters of faux blood. At the back was a bartender endlessly polishing the same glass, and a sullen, long-haired DJ playing Bauhaus at a modest volume to allow conversations. Every last person present were glaring at Akko and Diana, who stood out like violets growing out of a burnt-down house.

"Ohh," Akko said. "So it's like a LARP?"

"Yes, but without rock-paper-scissors and with more hickeys," Annabel said. Lotte resumed sprawling herself out against her legs a-dangling from the throne. "Anyhow, make yourselves at home, and try to ingratiate yourself into the roleplaying scene here. You like RPGs, you'll get into it." She clapped. "The masquerade resumes!"

"Alright," Akko said, holstering her wand. "Let's do some chargen."

"If I may," Diana said, drawing her own, "I suggest we blend in with the locals."

"Hey," Akko said. "Before we get crazy, quick question. The whole vampire thing, you're cool with it? I mean, in light of finding out that other you got turned into a cannibal space monster for a while? Or that psychotic break you had a few months ago when that possum bit you?"

"I'll be fine," Diana said. "And if I'm not, well, there's a safe word. Besides, the last vampire went extinct in the wild in '79."

"What about--oh, in the wild. So Blacula doesn't count."

"Well, that's a cold way of putting it."

"I fed him a fish once for a hundred yen," Akko said wistfully. "Anyway, what the hell am I gonna play?"

* * *

"The name is Atsuko," Akko said, flinging back her mane of red-and-white-streaked hair. "Atsuko... Daiquiri. First name Atsuko. Middle name Strawberry. I go by my middle name. I initialize my first. I think you can put it together." She metamorphied her dress into a sweeping red-and-silver number, somewhere between leather biking gear and lightweight armor.

"And I am Caramia Amati," Diana said, bowing. She opted to keep her outfit.

"Duly noted," Annabel said, tapping her tri-gar against an ornate dragon-themed ash tray despite it having not been ignited and thus not having any ash to tap. "What brings you here, Daiquiri?"

"I'm a..." She consulted her phone. "...I am a Trustworthy(?) Expert Bike Vamp and Swordswoman, (2 Weird, 1 Fight, 1 Sway). My trouble is that I can't resist falling in love with beautiful women in need of rescue! And this is my girlfriend."

"She saved me from a falling safe. What choice did I have but to fall in love?" Diana said.

"Fascinating," Annabel said, taking a very real sip of some red wine. "You are in the court of the Vixie Day-Empress, Nixaundra Chaos-Born the Infinitely Unnameable. You will notice my pet seated to my left..." Lotte was seated next to her on a little pillow on the ground. She stroked Lotte's hair and Lotte purred. "She is Little Lovely Lolo. Once she was just a doll. With my foul sorceries I brought her to life. She is my deadly ghoul-by-proxy, stealing blood for me that I may drink it from her in turn. Even when my shadow does not darken a threshold, I--"

"Also I can turn back into a doll!" Lotte said.

"Yes, you can," Annabel said. "How about you demonstrate this feat?"

"Yes, mistress!" Lotte pulled her wand and cast a spell, a puff of smoke obscuring her, briefly and vaguely, as she scrambled behind Annabel's throne and put a doll on her pillow. She looked a little bit like Lotte, though it was mainly in the dress. Lotte whispered a spell and the doll's spirit awoke; her scary little avatar fumbled to its feet and waved. Tiny painted fangs glinted just below the line of its painted-on smile.

"Horrifying," Akko said, as if commenting on how bright the sun was today.

"What sort of music do you have in this vast underground queendom of undead terrors?" Diana said.

"Music?" one of the vampires said.

"Yeah," Annabel said, "there's like, background music on from some roleplaying game music websites, but mostly we're here to larp."

"But this is a club," Akko said, "I should be damaging my long-term hearing health."

"Afraid we just don't do that here, buttercup," Annabel said, again pretending to light her culebra cigars.

"Well, I, A. Strawberry Daiquiri (get it?!) do solemnly swear to change that! Somehow!"

"You and what army?" Annabel said.

* * *

"Hey, we got company," Sucy said, spinning around on her chair to see that the club had in fact filled to capacity in the ten minutes since she and Wangari sat down to drink, and further, that everyone she could see was a man.

"Compa--" Wangari turned and her eyes widened. "Mother Superior jumped the gun! We got our pick of the--"

One of the strapping young men nearby pinned another strapping young man to the wall and pushed his mouth on theirs, passionately kissing as the pinned man wrapped his legs around his captor's waist.

"--okay nix that but oh man that's going in the Jill Mill."

Sucy checked her ankle monitor. "Well, I have some good news," she said. "Rule 63 Tyrion Lannister is still in range. And that DJ is still asleep."

Indeed, he was.

"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Wangari said.

"I dunno, Wan," Sucy said, kissing Wan's ear. "Think we can sneak off to the Sex Museum for a few minutes without setting off the alarm?"

"Close, but also, you keep some instruments on you in otherspace, right?"

"Obviously."

Wangari performed the necessary gestures for a wandless spell. " _Gu. Mo. Laimh._ " A bass guitar appeared in her hands.

"Oh, baby..." Sucy said.

* * *

"...you guessed wrong!" Akko said, jumping onto a red velvet ottoman as the music reached a crescendo. "For I'm no vampire! I'm actually--" She threw aside her armored vest revealing an identical armored vest but now she had three little barb-like horns on her head. "--a imp! [sic] I'm here to trap all you vampire fiends in an ecstasy of dance!" She flicked a pound coin into her hand and flung it into a jukebox, replacing the current song with a live recording of Nine Inch Nails covering [the song memorializing the extinction of vampires in the wild](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPPxxYr9LJM).

"...This music!" one of the vampires said (not the first one), "this song really kicks!"

Annabel shrugged. "Alright, living dead kids, get on your feet and let the blood you've drunk move your dead bones. I'm going to continue sipping." She did so.

"I ordain this action," Diana said, "for I am no mere peasant beauty, but an ordained priest of--" She flung her dress off to reveal a Catholic priest getup. Her sentence was interrupted by the upsettingly loud crack that accompanied her shooting up a foot in height, all of it in her legs. Her eyes flared, her mouth tightened.

"Diana?" Akko said. "I mean, whatever, are you okay?"

"Ponzi," she whimpered. "My leg. It hurt."

"Here we go," Akko said, lowering her onto a fainting couch (after first jumping onto the fainting couch for leverage). "I'll get you some healing potions, you take it easy."

"thank" Diana said.

The Lotte doll hopped onto the fainting couch and walked over to Diana's chest. Diana picked the doll up and stroked its hair.

"Good girl," Annabel said, reaching behind her throne to pet the slightly-concealed Lotte.

* * *

Sucy and Wangari stood astride the DJ booth, addressing the crowd. "Good evening, gentlemen of the Licorice Earring."

Wangari strummed her bass. "We take requests. We're good as hell."

"And we seriously have no dignity or limitations," Sucy said. "Say anything. We'll do it." She cupped her ear with one hand. "Eh?"

One of the men--shorter, portly, in da-glo colors--held up a hand.

"Yes, my good man?" Sucy said.

"I have a website!" he said, flinging a paper airplane that Wangari snatched in her toes (for obviously she wasn't wearing shoes if it was an option). "I have... I... oh, I can't say it out loud..."

Sucy typed in the address. "This is a Reocities page. It's... a songbook of Sonic the Hedgehog filk, circa 1996."

Some laughter and encouraging applause rippled out through the crowd.

Sucy and Wangari chatted for a second. "Alright," Sucy said, "listen closely, guys. This is a little number called 'Hedgehog With Butterfly Wings.'" In a tightly choreographed sequence, the two activated Bluetooth headsets and flung the cables of their guitars into conveniently-located inputs.

Their fingers held in position on their frets.

"The world is a Badnik," Sucy said, and they began to play, "sent to drai-ain ri-ings... secret mid-bosses floating down through the flames..."

* * *

"Oh shit everything's on fire!" Akko said.

"Well, at least it wasn't us," Annabel said. Akko stood back-to-back with her, and everyone else in the club was back-to-whatever with her as the fire herded them to the center of the vampire club. There were many times she regret being a little person and this was one of those times.

"Sorry, my bad!" a vampire (the first one) said, for he had accidentally thrown a lit Zippo at a bottle of absinthe, which knocked down a whole row of horribly expensive 140-proof absinthes and lit their contents all on the most fire possible. And that's why the club was now engulfed in a thousand flames.

"Akko," Diana said, equipping her wand and her fire axe, "we need to perform a fusion spell."

"Can I help?" Lotte said, clutching her doll/avatar to her chest.

"Can't hurt," Diana said, "unlike my legs."

"Seriously, you chugged like six pain-aways," Akko said, "are we gonna have to ask Croix for some--okay, no, that's a tasteless thing t--"

"Less chatting, more casting!" Annabel said.

"Oh, right," Akko said. "Diana, Lotte, on three! Three! Je suis... tres mouille!"

Diana and Lotte played catch-up with the fusion spell, spraying blue streams of light into the air over the huddled vampires. The streams converged and swirled overhead like a whirlpool in reverse, until they formed a great wall of mystic water that flashed outward, extinguishing the flames and soaking the structure of the club.

For a long moment the crew stood in the midst of a flash-flamed underclub, the air thick with smoke and the supports in the walls creaking.

"Well," the bartender said, still polishing that same damn glass, "all's well that ends well!"

"It's not done yet," Diana said. "First we'll need to spray repair magic on everything we can before any secondary damage sets in. So long as nobody's dancing upstairs, i think we'll have plenty of ti--"

* * *

"If you like the thought of gold!" Sucy sang.

"Then every little thing," Wangari sang.

"Is gonna work out fine... if you're Nack the Weasel!" they both sang.

They brought it home with what each of them thought was a solo, and the army of handsome men present jumped all at once as the solos hit their height. Debate would rage for hours on the internet over whether the floor dropping out beneath them made the moment more or less epic.

Akko crawled out of the resulting wreckage, spitting out a chunk of brick. "Anyone hurt?" she said.

"I think I'm alright," the gay man nearest her said. "Mighta bruised up a little, though."

"Oh, dang. Soon as I find my wand I'm getting right on that."

"Nngh!" Diana said, swimming out of the wreckage underneath one of the men from the club. "Wand!" she said, spitting her wand into her hand. "Raise your hand if you're hurt!"

Most of the vampires raised their hands from beneath the debris, along with a handful of gay men.

"Gonna be a long night," Diana said, gritting her teeth.

"But hey, at least we're doing it together!" Akko said, holding her hand out to Diana.

"I can't reach you," Diana said. They were separated by a good couple meters and several men dusting themselves off.

"It's the thought that counts!" Akko said.

"It is," Diana said.

"Ey yo!" Sucy shouted down at the hole. "Tiny child-woman, is your ankle whatever thing still intact?"

Annabel made a muffled sound from deep within the debris pile.

"Hey, the lights are still green," Wangari said, checking her ankle.

"Hot damn," Sucy said. "This may've been your week, you two, but we're definitely the winners today!"

"Hell yeah!" Wangari said. "B-side ship _re-pre-sent_!"

The two girls tapped their monitors together and sang some motivational music.

It was as lovely a date as Diana and Akko ever... okay, no, it wasn't. But it was certainly memorable.

Especially when Hilde was old enough to ask why Mama Di had such a giant pair of casts in that one photo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ending with a bit of a whimper rather than a bang (and a day and two hours late), but eh!
> 
> The week began with my birthday and this has been a lot of fun to write.
> 
> Thanks for reading, you magical internet presences.


End file.
